


Shinobi Tales

by Neleothesze



Category: Naruto
Genre: Action/Adventure, Additional Warnings At the Start of the Chapters Where They Apply, Drama, Fairy Tales, Gen, Pseudo-Self-Insert, Reincarnation, Self-Insert, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000, Zetsu's Diet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-30
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-24 03:05:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 20,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4903129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neleothesze/pseuds/Neleothesze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"A tired-looking, middle-aged shinobi visited on Friday, spouting nonsense. Yamada Isamu had not attended work for three days. He did not appear to have left with information above his clearance level but would nevertheless, after a two-week period of absence - 'as per regulations', be labeled a missing-nin.</p><p>Isamu... my lazy brother who was a career genin with little to no ambition... Isamu, who held a desk job as an inventory manager at a shinobi supply store. I recall trying to stifle my hysterical laughter. I had unknowingly set my brother up. <i>'Missing-nin? No, good sir, you see, the S-class criminal <b>I </b> invited for tea roughly four weeks ago must have taken him for a friendly chat.'</i>"</p><p>One reincarnation unwisely decides to publish the stories of several villains in the form of fairy tales. Unfortunately, not just children take notice. </p><p>Cast: most Akatsuki members, shady Konoha shinobi, Original Characters and a pseudo-SI.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The First Story

**Author's Note:**

> I've finally decided to move this here from fanfiction.net. Even though it's a couple of years old by now, it's still the one I love the most, of all the things I've written. It can still be read at ff: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9902547/1/Shinobi-Tales but with all the problems ff's been going through these past few months, I just feel better knowing it's here as well.
> 
> This story is complete. Just adding the chapters one by one, now. :)

**Chapter 1:**  The First Story

(three weeks after the death of Akasuna no Sasori, Pain's Tower, Ame)

 **THE WIND LASHED** against her cloak and Konan resisted the urge to nestle deeper into the thick folds. A lifetime in the city of rain had inured her to the cold but the urge to seek an ever-absent warmth still sneaked up on her, especially when her emotions ran high. As if to mirror her unease the sky had darkened much sooner than usual, with thick, ugly clouds swarming over the grey expanse, casting the city into an early twilight.

You could barely see the neon lights of the nearby skyscrapers and as she approached Pain's Deva Path to where he stood under an awning, keeping a silent vigil over his city, Konan couldn't help but notice that, unlike the regular light patter, the constant rain fell in thick sheets today. This usually meant that Nagato was particularly troubled and she sighed, knowing that her news would only add to the discontent.

"We found this book when we were clearing Sasori's belongings. It's something I think you should read." she said, handing him a thin book with red and tan covers.

-0-0-0-0-0-

'[...]

In trying to dodge Katashi's summons, the oni momentarily lost sight of the youkai himself. The mistake proved costly and the oni roared with pain as instants later Katashi's poisoned whip lashed at his side. Deep purple streaks marred the hardened skin and the cuts sizzled as the poison burnt through the demon's flesh. Sweat, blood and dirt covered its massive frame and the demon was now swaying on its feet, its left eye close and right arm hanging limply.

In desperation, the oni raised a nearby boulder and flung it at the red-headed youkai. His strength sapped by Sora's magic and the wounds acquired during the lengthy battle, Katashi vainly tried to drag himself away as the giant rock arched through the cave and fell, trapping his legs under it. Seeing her chance, the witch quickly silenced her chant and hobbled towards Katashi's struggling figure.

She knelt beside him then brought the youkai to her chest in a parody of a loving embrace. "Goodbye, my son." whispered he kuro miko.

"Mother… please..." Katashi rasped, holding Sora tightly even as the woman drew her weapon and plunged it into his heart.'

( _excerpt from the last chapter of_ The Demon Who Became a Boy and The Boy Who Became a Demon)

Pain closed the book and carefully set it aside. It was short, as stories go. The lives of two men laid out in less than sixty-four pages. From their birth to the death of one of the two main characters and the revival of the other: the fairy-tale death of a character fashioned after a man who had died in eerily similar circumstances less than a month ago.

"When was this published?" Pain asked, fingers tapping idly on the cover.

"Three years ago."

The answer was equally unexpected and unwelcome. "Are there others?"

"I've sent Zetsu for a copy of every other book he could find by the same author." Konan replied "Sasori's notes suggest at least five others: The Miko's Last Dance, The Oni of a Thousand Eyes, The Wizard Who Put a Kingdom to Sleep, The Three Brothers of Vice and The Prince with Eyes Like the Sun."

"And the author?"

"Unknown."

* * *

(three years prior)

 **What _does_ come after death?**  It's a question that has plagued theologians and philosophers alike and often follows after the equally unanswerable question:  **Is there a soul?**

If only I were in a position to share my enlightening findings… You see, I was either born with a psychological condition which causes vivid hallucinations in the form of memories or whatever essence is the basis on my Self has managed to retain memories of two former lives.

I was born Yamada Tsubaki, girl, third child of the now widowed Yamada Hiro, headman of our little fishing village in Kawa no Kuni(1). I was also, to the best of my knowledge, Leo Rosetti, middle-aged man, coastal engineer for TERA, in Venice, Italy. Faintly - because these memories were sparser and somewhat harder to recall - I was also Gyeon Soo-Jin, teenage woman, small-time runway model out of Ansan, South Korea.

Having most of the memories of two radically different adults in the body of a toddler was, in turns, frustrating, mortifying and amusing. I would remember hating - and loving - the taste of fish, loathing - and enjoying - a good sarcastic remark, I would catch myself staring after some of the better looking young adults in village, both women and men and mentioning things that, for all intents and purposes, did not exist.

There was television but no telephones; there were explosives but no guns, trains(2) but no airplanes or cars. Chemistry, physics, medicine were a joke - or they would have been if not for chakra.

Chakra, the not so mysterious life-force my previous incarnations had read about in fantasy stories, an applied phlebotinum out there with antimatter, nanotechnology, runic power, soul shards or mana, apparently exists.

The fantasy stories, and more specifically, the tales of the shinobi Naruto, were suddenly becoming more like incredibly accurate historical accounts - incredibly accurate historical accounts of events that were yet to happen. And while it was an intriguing discovery, I had a hard time envisioning my position in the upcoming conflicts.

I (Leo) enjoyed playing shooters and fighting games and had encountered the Naruto franchise from the console fighting games. The story had been secondary to the very well-designed battles that were nevertheless easy enough to win after a 10 hour workday. I (Soo-Jin) was also a manga addict. The Naruto manga had not been my favorite , but the fascinating plots and interesting characters had kept it firmly in the top five. I enjoyed reading about the underdogs, the anti-heroes and the villains.

The end line however was that I (Tsubaki) was also five year old civilian girl with above average comprehension skills for my age but the chakra equivalent of a dog. The only active position I could take in the upcoming conflicts was that of casualty.

Whichever way I looked at it, I couldn't get physically involved. Soo-Jin's hormones might be egging me on to find a way to meet Nagato and sweep him off his feet and Leo's couch-potato battle-lust might be urging me to stalk Naruto until I got to see an "epic battle", but these impulses were so far out of the realm of possibility that they were easy to subdue. Interrogation - with a side dish of physical torture and mental rape - was a terrifying reality and while I desperately wanted to make my mark in history, I didn't want to become a smear.

When my eldest brother returned from Tanigakure no Sato(3) with a pack full of new books and scrolls - because I had already pillaged the village library and was ready to murder for something new to read - and tried to discreetly put aside a couple of orange books before handing me my stash, the proverbial light bulb lit above my head with the brightness of a hundred suns. If Jiraiya of the Sannin could hide messages into his pornographic literature, I could hide news reports, 'prophecies' and bibliographies into fairy tales.

-0-0-0-0-0-

My father, bless his heart, didn't blink an eye when I told him that I'd be moving with Tanigakure with Isamu - my second eldest brother - ostensibly to study (and secretly to become a writer). He had probably given up on me being a normal child the first time I tried to engage him into a conversation about chakra's influence on the laws of physics. Isamu himself proved eminently bribable. Homemade food and the keeping the place clean bought my futon and desk a permanent spot in his apartment.

I decided to start my literary career with something less likely to blow in my face than a shinobi S-class secret but somewhat more intriguing than Haruno Sakura's split personality.

After two months of toiling - the plot was all there and the characters were already fully fledged, but I had never shown any literary talent so hiding the truth in a fairy tale wrapping was proving harder than expected - I sent my first manuscript for publishing (out of my brother's money).

'The Demon Who Became a Boy and The Boy Who Became a Demon' told the story of two beautiful red-headed boys from the city of of diamonds and glass.

The first of these boys, Kazuki, was a hanyou, the heir to the king of the land. Raised in a palace, swathed in the finest of fabrics and given the richest of meals he had, nevertheless, been hated from birth by all of his father's subjects for his demonic heritage. The second boy, Katashi, was the son of the kuro miko Sora, a witch and one of the king's advisers.

While Kazuki would try to cleanse the darkness in his nature and ease the pain in his soul, Katashi would sell his own soul for power, learning and enhancing his mother's dark craft and, in the process, becoming less than a man.

In the end, Katashi would drain Kazuki's youki and turn him into a human boy while Katashi - the true demon - would die at his mother's hands.

As I prepared my next story, I wondered if the true protagonists of 'The Demon Who Became a Boy and The Boy Who Became a Demon' would read it, if they'd take it seriously, if they'd avoid the fate I remembered from Leo and Soo-Jin's memories.

I hoped, but doubted it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) **Kawa no Kuni** \- The Land of Rivers  
>  (2) appearing in Naruto the Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow  
> (3) **Tanigakure no Sato** \- The Village Hidden in Valleys
> 
> -0-0-0-0-0-
> 
> Behind the name - Kazuki (one hope); Katashi (firm/hard)
> 
> (shortened the title from 'Shinobi Tales: Tsubaki of the Pen' to 'Shinobi Tales'; hopefully I caught all the places where it needed to be changed)


	2. Children at Play

**Chapter 2** : Children at Play

( _excerpts from_  Book 2, Chapter 4 - The Miko's Last Dance)

With measured steps, Ginko made her way to the ritual circle. The runes flared as she crossed the threshold, bathing the miko in an eerie lilac light. For an instant, Ginko's eyes met those of her companion and they shared a small, secret smile. Her hair swirling in the strange breeze stirring inside the runic array and her eyes lit by violet fire, one could almost believe the rumours that spoke of the priestess' immortality.

Gracefully, Ginko lay down in the center of the ritual circle and began meditating.

"Ginko-sama, are you certain this is what you want?" one of the younger acolytes timidly inquired.

Though her countenance seemed unruffled, Ginko's eyes danced with barely hidden amusement.

"You fret too much, Mimiko. It is our sworn duty to serve Lady Junjou. There is no greater honor than to be chosen as one of her sacrifices." the miko answered, the soft tone working to take the sting out of her chiding words.

"Worry not, the Lady provides for her faithful. Naoki, Yuka, Aimi, make sure the array stays untouched during the ritual. I will be unable to help while I am communing with our Lady."

[...]

"Ginko-sama!" came Yuka's anguished cry. The raging demon was pulling on the chains, slowly making its way towards the priestess' chanting form.

"Arrogant blood sack!" he snarled "You think you can banish me?! You're an ant before me! A gnat! A yipping mut! I'll collar you with your entrails! I'll rend that filthy human skin, I'll tear your flesh and when you're dead I'll have legions upon legions defile your corpse!"

The closer he came to the woman, the viler were his threats. However, when he was within feet of Ginko, the miko finally opened her eyes, ended her prayer and thrust a ritual dagger into her chest. Her body crumpled and, with it, so did the demon's. Whereas before no weapon had managed to even pierce his hardened skin, blood now gushed out of a deep chest wound. Within minutes, his false body started turning to dust and his writhing soul was dragged back into the abyss.

Lady Junjou's ritual had worked.

-0-0-0-0-0-

(a year ago, in a trading port in Kaminari no Kuni(1))

The marketplace teemed with civilian shoppers but, despite the crowd, one shinobi was painfully aware of the growing group of pint-sized stalkers pointing and staring at him. The deeper the two cloaked companions walked into the village, the more Hidan's muscles grew taut, his teeth clenched and his eyes narrowed until, some twenty minutes later, he suddenly stopped in the middle of the road and turned to his partner to ask in a petulant tone

"Oi, Kakuzu! You saw them too, right? The fuck's wrong with the little shits?! Seriously, they've been eyeballin' me since we walked in."

"Mhmm."

"That's it! I can't take this shit anymore! You, the brat in the ass-shaped hat! Come here!" Hidan yelled, pointing towards the tallest of the dirty children trying - and failing - to hide behind a pack of overflowing trash cans.

After a minute of overt nudging and giggling, a small boy of about eight left the group and approached Hidan's scowling form.

The Jashinist wasted no time.

"So, the fuck's with you brats followin' me like half-starved strays? Do I look like a fucking sweets vendor?"

Though surprised at the stranger's vitriol, the young boy tried to put on brave face and asked with a barely trembling voice "S-sorry, honorable stranger. We noticed your me-medalion and we w-were just wondering. Are you a priest?"

"Eh. You can tell? Yeah, I'm..."

His easy agreement soon saw him mobbed by a gaggle of wide-eyed children, all vying for his attention.

"Are you a healer then?"

"Are you ready a holy servant of the Lady Junjou?"

"Does Lady Junjou(2) really give you immortality?"

"I wanna see a mystical ritual!"

"Can you resurrect my cat?"

"The fuck! Lady Pure-Heart? I'm a priest of Lord Jashin! The Lord doesn't ask us to heal, you stupid heathens, he demands destruction! The only truth in this fucking world is death, and we're harbingers of that truth. We honor Lord Jashin by hastening the death of all the fucking infidels! The sacrifices should be fucking happy they are serving as..."

The more he expounded on the tenets of his religion, the more skeptical the village children were becoming.

"What is he talking about?"

"Mister, are you drunk?"

"Let's go, he's not a real priest like Miko Ginko(3)."

"Are you stupid? Why is he wearing Lady Junjou's amulet of peace then, like the miko?"

Kakuzu couldn't contain a chuckle.

"Oh, this is priceless. You're wearing Lady Pure-Heart's amulet of peace."

By now Hidan's last shreds of patience had evaporated like water in Wind Country midsummer.

"You little punk, what did you say! I'll fucking sacrifice you all!"

"Hidan, leave it. We have no time for your games. The takeovers Leader approved must be completed until tomorrow morning when the next shipments are due. The goods must go to us not the current owners."

"Oi, Kakuzu, don't walk away! Didn't you fucking hear what the blasphemers said? They perverted his holy symbol and mocked his holy name! Lord Jashin won't stand for it! Oi, wait up! It'll only take a minute."

"We're on a tight schedule, little miko, come along."

"Kakuzu, you fucker! I'll kill you!"

-0-0-0-0-0-

(three years prior)

I knew before I started penning the stories that I wouldn't do it for the fame of being a published author. What's more, it was clear that I had to take certain precautions to ensure that I'd get to write what I wanted at all. The Akatsuki were only one organisation I was planning on targeting and none of the other protagonists were any friendlier, nor were their life stories something they would normally want to share with the public at large.

Too bad real life had no pause button, no room for mid-fight storytelling or lengthy hero-villain dialogues or I would have felt my books to be redundant and left them unwritten.

But I had memories of over a hundred hours invested into the lives of these people (I remembered some truths that only they knew about themselves) and felt - perhaps a mark that I was developing a god complex - that I was right in showing the world another side of such powerful characters who would make history while giving the people themselves a chance - if slight - to change the future I had seen written.

-0-0-0-0-0-

In ensuring my anonymity, my age and civilian status worked to my advantage - after all, not even shinobi take a five year old seriously unless he or she is a known prodigy - but that couldn't be my only cover. Instead, I decided to play the part of a child bribed with sweets into playing messenger for some mysterious, cloaked figure.

The first time I went to submit my manuscript for 'The Demon Who Became a Boy and The Boy Who Became a Demon', I hid my hair under a ratty cap, dressed like a boy and entered the publishing house with a huge lollipop in my mouth, a wide smile and the desire to not let my "mysterious benefactor" down by failing to deliver the package.

The second time, I planned the outing even better. I made sure to hide the manuscript under my skirt before leaving Isamu's apartment, entered an old building and then left, some time later, with the package clutched proudly to my chest and waving a half-eaten stick of dango. This time I was a girl with glasses, freckles and pigtails.

The third, I was a street urchin. The fourth, I went as myself. I tried to treat the trips as a game seeing as I was playing, to the best of my ability, for an audience that may or may not have existed (and as a civilian I had no way of checking). Even my little corner in Isamu's apartment was part of the game. A little shelf was packed full with children's books and fairytales (so that my own books wouldn't stand out) and the chest holding my pens and ink bottles didn't have rough drafts of suspicious sounding stories but rather childish drawings of princesses, samurai and shinobi. I didn't know if anyone would come knocking to ask about the writer I had supposedly run errands for but I hoped to have covered my bases.

By the third book I knew that failure to play - if a hostile audience did in fact exist - would have resulted in a forced relocation to the neighbourhood's friendly interrogator even if, in theory, Konoha shinobi would have had no right to detain a Tani civilian without explanation.

After a year and a half of waiting and having published four stories(4) without any hint of retribution - even though my two most recent stories subtly aired some of Konoha's dirtiest laundry -, I was getting weary of the game. It seemed unlikely that anyone would bother with the ramblings of an unknown author of fairy tales.

For a while, so it seemed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) **Kaminari no Kuni** \- The Land of Lightning
> 
> (2) Behind the name: Junjou: pure heart / Jashin: wicked heart
> 
> (3) Behind the name: Ginko: silver child
> 
> (4) 1) The Demon who Became a Boy and the Boy who Became a Demon; 2) The Miko's Last Dance; 3) The Oni of a Thousand Eyes; 4) The Wizard who Put a Kingdom to Sleep


	3. The Dragon

**Warnings** : mentions of cannibalism [because there's no way to make Zetsu's diet G-rated]

* * *

 **Chapter 3** : The Dragon

(two years prior)

It was a curious series of events.

Earlier in the day Obito had ordered Zetsu to track down a certain forbidden scroll. The scroll, supposedly owned by a med-nin of dubious nature, was said to hold information that would be beneficial in augmenting the strand of Hashirama's cells which Obito was currently studying and which had him stumped.

Zetsu had performed the given task with his usual efficiency. However, the med-nin had added a number of unusual traps to his home, to better safeguard his possessions. As a result, Zetsu's black half had suffered an injury. In retaliation - and perhaps because Pain hated it when the clone ate in the compound - Zetsu had simply shoved the man's belongings to Obito for sorting, before dragging the naked corpse to an alcove to munch on it.

And so, while trying to tune out the sound of crunching bone and ripped flesh, Obito had settled down with the gore covered clothes and the blood-stained pack and started rifling for the elusive scroll. Some time later, he was surrounded by a stack of medical scrolls, a pile of stoppered vials, a handful of oddly-labeled bottles and a gift-wrapped package. The package revealed a couple of thin, vividly colored books: 'Volume 3, The Oni with a Thousand Eyes' and 'Volume 4, The Wizard who Put a Kingdom to Sleep'.

-0-0-0-0-0-

It took Obito the whole of three weeks to conclude that the former med-nin's works in cellular modification couldn't be applied to his own experiments - or that he lacked the necessary knowledge to properly implement the new findings.

During one of his rest periods, on a whim, he decided to read the two books he had found among the dead shinobi's possessions. He read the first twenty pages of the first book to pass the time, frequently stopping to take care of one thing or another. He read the last thirty in one sitting because he was intrigued. He skimmed the second book in less than an hour, without once having raised his eyes from the pages. At the end, he ordered Zetsu to find out everything he could about the author.

Perhaps, as a child, he might have treated them as the fairy-tales they were obviously meant to imitate. Knowing himself, he would most likely have drawn some parallel between himself and the young hero seeking to achieve his destiny. As a thirty year old, Obito found himself inclined to draw other parallels and wavered between amusement and admiration, anxiety and anger.

The plot of the first book(1) was basic. The Yami no Oni(2) had taken residence inside the caverns of Mount Kamikao(3), stashing his riches in the many underground halls. For centuries on end young warriors tried to assault the oni in his domain in order to retrieve the hoard and be hailed as heroes.

For every one that failed, the Yami no Oni would pluck out his eyes and eat his heart. The stolen eyes he could proudly display on a string, a grisly necklace that gave the oni mystical powers. But, after a while, no more warriors came. At first, the Yami no Oni was glad for the respite, but as the weeks turned into months, so did his good humor change into restlessness. He had grown accustomed to the taste of man-flesh and his greed urged him to further increase his mystical powers by adding more eyes to his macabre collection.

And so, as he had not done for centuries, the Yami no Oni left his lair in search of worthy prey. In his travels he happened upon the small kingdom of Hyakutaiyou(4), the home of the fire youkai. Their powerful youki made his mouth water but he knew that, with his current power, he couldn't possibly kill one of the fire youkai, let alone the whole clan.

But the oni was persistent and cunning. After studying the fire youkai for three years, he found they key to defeating the mighty youkai. Its name was Hideki(5), a young wizard who was in love with Aiko, the fire lord's daughter.

The Yami no Oni then tricked young Hideki into believing that the oni was an unbeatable foe whose greatest desire was to eat the fire lord's daughter. Hideki was devastated. For a month he begged and pleaded for the girl to be spared and, in the end, the oni mercifully agreed to a deal: if Hideki could put the whole kingdom to sleep for one night, then he would spare young Aiko's life.

It was a dark deal, a horrible bargain, because even naive young Hideki knew that he was leaving the whole village at the oni's mercy. But the pact was sealed and Hideki set off to find some manner of spell or magic item with which to ensnare a kingdom.

In the end, what he found was much different. As he passed a dark cave in the marshes of the Black River, he felt the presence of a powerful entity. Recklessly, he walked into the cave, where the mysterious being awaited him in the shape of a shadow dragon. When the being asked about the purpose of his unannounced visit, Hideki found himself recounting the entire tragic tale. Oh, how the powerful being was amused. Here was a chance to sow some chaos in the land of mortals, whom the being heartily despised.

The dragon bound young Hideki to a second promise: he would help the wizard cast the mightiest of illusions in return for a decade of servitude. Hideki would save his beloved Aiko, but not see her again for ten years. The wizard agreed.

The spell casting itself was recounted in few words as the story focused on the aftermath of the nighttime assault, when the Yami no Oni feasted on the hearts of a thousand youkai.

With his power magnified to god-like levels, the oni went on to systematically assume control of seven kingdoms, starting a rein of terror that would last eleven years. On the eleventh year a young female warrior came to the seat of his power and challenged the terrible oni to a fight to the death. The Yami no Oni had grown confident in the power of his talisman of a thousand eyes and gladly accepted the challenge.

In the battle arena, before the faces of thousands, the warrior cast off his helm and revealed himself as the fire lord's missing daughter, Aiko. Wreathed in the demonic flames of her ancestry, Aiko was untouchable. With a hundred blazing arrows she pierced the oni's monstrous body and though his stamina was immense, the demon eventually succumbed. From the highest spires, the shadow dragon watched the defeat with a satisfied grin.

The second book, The Wizard who Put a Kingdom to Sleep, followed the adventures of the wizard Hideki while in the service of the shadow dragon, the drama of the separated lovers and the tragedy of the wizard's death at the hand of his beloved.

* * *

Having given Zetsu his new orders, Obito set both books aside. He still had to come up with long-term solution for fortifying the Hashirama clones and, being mostly self-taught, his medical knowledge wasn't really up to the task. If only Orochimaru hadn't lusted after Itachi's sharingan. ' _Well.._ ' Obito mused  _'...if only the sannin had been a trust-worthy individual. And Itachi... that man..._ '

He would have to re-read the books with great care if Zetsu somehow couldn't procure the author for a chat.

-0-0-0-0-0-

I had my first near heart-attack when I was six.

During a weekday in mid-September, while I was idling the morning away with some cheesy movie about a warrior princess's magical adventures, I heard a throat being loudly cleared from the doorway. The near-death experience came when I realized that the person clearing his throat - likely because he had been standing there for a while and the clueless civilian hand't sensed anything - was a tall man dressed in form-fitting black clothes and sporting an ominous orange mask. Thank the gods for whatever I had inherited of Leo's on-the-spot boss-bullshitting talent because the first thing to come out of my mouth probably saved my life.

"Oh, you scared me!" I recall saying "I didn't hear you come in. You must be one of nii-san's shinobi friends!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) the first book Obito has is 'The Oni with a Thousand Eyes'
> 
> (2) **Yami no Oni** \- The Oni of Darkness
> 
> (3) **Kamikao** \- loosely Face of God/Faces of Gods
> 
> (4) **Hyakutaiyou** \- Hundred Suns
> 
> (5) Behind the name: Hideki: excellent tree


	4. A Friendly Chat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Timeline:** since the first reference in this story was "three weeks after the death of Akasuna no Sasori", the timeline reference will be B.S.D. (Before Sasori's Death) / A.S.D (After Sasori's Death) :)  
>  **3 years B.S.D.** \- Tsubaki (peasant - age 5) moves to Tanigakure no Sato to live with her older brother Isamu and write bibliographies of certain shinobi. These are written in the shape of children's stories and fairytales.  
>  **2 years B.S.D** \- Obito stumbles upon two of the four published children's stories. He asks Zetsu to investigate.  
>  **2 years B.S.D** \- Obito tries to gather information from the one lead Zetsu was able to provide.  
>  **1 year B.S.D.** \- Hidan gets harassed by a gaggle of children who think he's some holy healing priest. (He's quick to disabuse them of that notion.)  
>  **3 weeks A.S.D.** \- Konan finds Sasori's copy of 'The Demon Who Became a Boy and The Boy Who Became a Demon'.

**Chapter 4** : A Friendly Chat

(previously)

**"Oh, you scared me!" I recall saying "I didn't hear you come in. You must be one of nii-san's shinobi friends!"**

His head tilted minutely, either in amusement or curiosity, but since I hadn't heard any threats yet, I soldiered on. Dredging up the friendliest smile I could muster, I tried to act as I would normally have around one of Isamu's real friends (though significantly more politely, since most of Isamu's friends were a rowdy bunch and the masked Uchiha didn't look like he'd take any backtalk from a kid)

"I'm the youngest sibling, Yamada Tsubaki. Pleased to meet you, Kamen-san(1). Isamu's still at work. It will be at least an hour until he finishes today." _'there, I provided you with a plausible excuse, please let's keep this friendly'_  I mentally added.

"Please, take a seat." was what I offered out loud, moving some cushions around the table. ' _it's obvious you won't be leaving_ '

He remained standing, leaning against the door-frame - arms loosely crossed over his chest in a posture even I recognized as confrontational - long enough for me to start feeling uncomfortable. I tried to focus on the fact that I was doing these people a favor - giving them an out and/or helping them see the bigger picture - in order to subdue any rising feelings of culpability or shame his aloof behavior instilled.

Perhaps the end result was my face twisting in some sort of self-righteous indignation at a guest's perceived rudeness because the Uchiha finally let out a soft snort and walked to take a seat at the table. I think I might have offered a choice of beverages, possibly more than we had and probably in an uncharitable tone.

"Some tea." was the clipped reply.

* * *

I had barely sat the tea tray on the table when the interrogation started.

"Your brother's been surprisingly tight-lipped about you, Tsubaki-chan." the masked Obito said, in a deep, nearly toneless voice. And damned if he wasn't good at picking up my excuse and rolling with it.

"Isamu-nii doesn't much care my pastimes."  _'mostly because I won't even let him in the room while I write, but partly because he's just disinterested like that'_  Aloud, I tried to direct his attention to something innocuous.

"But I'll show him, I'll be a famous painter some day."

"A would-be painter, are you?"

"Yep." was my easy agreement and wasn't I glad to have a chest full of ink paintings and sketches to support my claims of supposed artistic passion.

"That's interesting" he replied, in a monotone that managed to convey the absolute opposite. "Are you any good?"

"I could show you if you want." I eagerly offered, trying to steer the conversation in a direction I felt comfortable with.

A nod from Obito and I was rummaging through the trunk for some of my nicer works while using the distraction to consider the position I found myself in.

It seemed clear that the editor had blabbed about children bringing in the manuscripts and I had obviously been recognized as one of the children but since I was still in my home, conscious, undamaged, unthreatened, hopefully undrugged - and that reminded me, I had left 'Tobi' alone with my tea for far too long - this visit was probably only to confirm what I had spread around the publishing house: that the 'delivery children' had never seen the author himself. Still, I didn't know how any lies would hold up to a shinobi's perceptiveness so I would have to pray that the Uchiha would continue asking the wrong questions or that I could tell the truth without actually telling him anything.

* * *

He took at most five minutes to look through all of my selected paintings.

"Most of them are of princesses... and I see you have a bookcase filled with story books. Are they all of characters you have read about?"

' _...and he managed to switch to the desired topic despite the diversion._ ' I remember thinking. ' _...let's bite the bullet then._ '

"Yep. That one's Kaguya-hime(2), those are of Tsuru-Nyoubou-chan(3), Moeruke-chan... but those other three aren't women." ' _...and I'm certainly not going to tell you that they're inspired by Senju Hashirama and his brother._ '

"They're legendary warriors, ready to fight against an ancient evil."

"Oh? I see. My mistake. The ancient evil is missing from the drawings."

"Well, ancient evil's probably an exaggeration,"  _'...though not likely, your ancestor counts as an ancient, current and future evil all by himself, a one-man army and a force of nature too'_  "they fight other mighty warriors, power-hungry warlords and back-stabbing allies" ' _...but this definition fits Madara just as well._ '

"No mystical enemies for these fighters? No Ushi-Oni(4) to drive back, no Jikininki(5) to banish, no immortal youkai lord or dragon to vanquish?" There was a sardonic undertone and his deep, gravelly voice was so completely, perfectly level that it could only be mocking.

"No." was all I had to say, but even I knew it for a lie. He'd stumbled upon one of the right questions, because the Senju brothers  **had**  fought against the bijuu and would, if the memories stayed relevant, end up fighting against him and Zetsu.

"You don't sound very sure." was the predictable reply.

"I'm sure it would be very difficult to kill a youkai lord or a dragon, maybe impossible." ' _A truth._ ' "Especially for a single man, no matter how great." ' _Another truth._ '

"Oh, so the villain usually wins?" Obito inquired in a mildly curious voice, leaning forward on the table, a finger idly tapping against a drawing of a Hashirama look-alike swinging a flaming katana.

"Only if the hero doesn't bring his army." I challenged.

"And doesn't the villain also get an army? That doesn't seem very fair." was his mild reproof, complete with falsely disappointed sigh.

"Well, devils, oni and youkai are generally too arrogant to ally with one another and dragons work alone." I answered, getting into his game "...But I suppose, if we _had_ to be fair and if the villain was a smart enough to gather an army, then the heroic king would have to... ally with neighboring kingdoms."

"And two or more kings would become allies just like that?" Obito countered in a subtly derisive tone. "Isn't it a bit naive, to hope for former adversaries to put aside their differences because of a passing threat that would inevitably harm one kingdom more than another?"

I tried to restrain myself from gritting my teeth and voicing the thought that dragons were usually stupid anyway and would probably pick the dumbest, weakest minions around and then the king wouldn't even  **need**  allies.

"Don't mock me. In the face of terrible evil... some _monster_ everyone despises... even warring kings would put aside their differences." A breath. "And if they don't... if they falter... the hero is on the front line, ready to gut the demon, e-exorcise the devil or behead the dragon himself!"

Looking back, I concede that my words may have been unnecessarily harsh. I had been caught up in his game, forgetting for a moment that we were speaking metaphorically - even if he wasn't aware that we were both doing it. In the heat of the moment I had lashed out, yelling my opinion as fact, screaming with the absolute certainly only children's voices can achieve. Even if I hadn't realized my faux-pas, his next words would have made it painfully clear.

"A terrible evil... everyone despises, eh? Fitting, perhaps." The words were measured and his voice was quiet, almost rueful.

Coming from a man who had allowed only the barest hints of emotion in his speech, it shamed me. ( **it shouldn't, _really_  shouldn't have...**) I had been oh-so-proud that he was interested in the very character I had written for him, excited that at least one of the key players in the upcoming war had information that could make them reflect on their past wrongs and see where their future actions might take them. I had been behaving like a conceited movie director, waiting for the actors to play their parts, ready to sneer when they failed to meet my expectations.

But with his words ' _A terrible evil everyone despises, eh? Fitting, perhaps.'_  I had suddenly become aware of my position. I'd allowed myself to pass judgement on a stranger I knew only from memories of half-remembered stories read by two people I may have been, lifetimes away.

I'd mocked and insulted this stranger, to his face, based on things which may or may no be true about him - glorified hearsay almost. What proof did I have that his life had played out - and would play out - as Leo and Soo-Jin had read? And worse still, I couldn't apologize without giving away that I knew who he was. How humiliating. For a long moment I struggled with what I could say without coming across as weird - or worse, coming across as suspicious - before extending a peace-offering.

"You seem to sympathize with the... lose... youkai and dragons, Kamen-san. I'm sure you aren't the only person out there. Maybe you could write a book..." ' _...or better still, I'll write one. I have to first finish the current book, but I will definitely write your story. Though it will be played as a fairy-tale, I'll write it as I remember it. That will be my apology. If the story I write is untrue, then at least you will no longer identify with the characters._ '

"Perhaps then... people like me could grow to like them too. But you'd have to make it as exciting as possible: there should be plenty of travelling monks, warrior princesses, friendly youkai allies, evil priestesses and summoned demons."

"You're very knowledgeable about what a fantasy story should look like, Tsubaki-chan. Did anyone talk to you about what it takes to write a fairy-tale?"

"No."

"Really? Word is you were the one to bring Muhito(6)'s last manuscript to editor Matsuda at the publishing house ."

' _He would have made an excellent interrogator_ ' I mused. In the span of some twenty odd minutes I had run through the whole gamut of emotions.

I had been frightened, angry, excited, amused and embarrassed. By the time he'd finally asked his question, I was weary of the whole word game: had I merely been hiding information about some stranger, I would have gladly given it up.

As it was, I could only let out a deep sigh and continue the charade a while longer.

"Not you too, Kamen-san. I already told Matsuda-san that I didn't see Muhito-sensei's face. I told him that Muhito-sensei was wearing a dark cloak and a hood." ' _And that's word for word what I told Matsuda-san. Good thing the editor couldn't sense the lies._ '

"What age would you give the man?"

"Muhito-sensei?" ' _What age would I give... I could give him any age..._ ' "Middle-aged, I suppose..."

If he was getting frustrated, it wasn't apparent in either his posture or his voice.

"Do you know who else delivered the other manuscripts?"

"Matsuda-san said they were brought by children, like me."

"Do you know who they are?"

I tried to repress an instinctive flinch. ' _Fuck._ '

"I did ask Matsuda-san and it wasn't any of my friends. ...But some of them did get better sweets than me. All I got was a box of wagashi. Maybe Muhito-sensei was running low on money."

I watched his body for signs that he was satisfied with my evasive answer. He had leaned back in his seat, head tilted to the side, considering.

"What about his voice? Did he sound young or old? What sort..."

"You're very pushy, Kamen-san." I interrupted.

We'd been playing this game for too long, and sooner or later I'd make a mistake. I was getting frustrated - bordering desperate - when I had a flash of inspiration. ( **in retrospect, it was such a _utterly moronic_  decision to make, based on ridiculous assumptions...**)

"You know what I think? I don't think you're one of nii-san's friends at all!" I challenged, trying to sound menacing.

A beat. "Oooh?"

I mentally counted to five and then, pointing my finger straight at his mask, I growled - as much as possible with a young girl's voice - "You must be one of those rivals!"

"Rivals?!" the masked Uchiha choked out. I think he had, after all, been expecting me to denounce him as something different.

And it was perfect. ( **it was my worst mistake...** )

I could reasonably deduce ( **how _idiotically_ arrogant to gamble on something like this...**) to that our house had been searched and since both me and my brother were alive and well, nothing incriminating had been found. Out of the two of us, a sixteen year old man would be the likelier choice for a mystery author over his seven year old sister even if said sister could have, supposedly, played delivery girl. Again, if Isamu was alive and well and Obito was here, chatting with the delivery kid, he must have already - either through observation or interrogation - discarded the elder as a valid choice.

"Yes, yes. Boys are really fond of the whole rivalry thing." I said, trying to look serious and knowledgeable. "It's all about growing stronger, smarter or more popular while having that most important person acknowledge your growth. Like enemies, but with more bonding."

"You think I'm your brother's rival." and there it was, a catch in his voice, his tone rife with disbelief.

"Of course. I should have figured it out sooner. I didn't recognize your voice. You haven't even properly introduced yourself! And now you're trying to find out random things to somehow make fun of my brother." - a beat and then - "And rivals are all about opposites. I can see it... Isamu's friendly and funny, you've awfully chilly and stiff. Isamu's short and lean' ' _that much was true, Isamu **was** shorter than the masked Uchiha but he was developing a pouch_' '...and look at you, tall as a pole. His hair is shoulder length, yours is short and spiky. And that mask - it's suspicious. Isamu's pretty, very pretty. I bet you're hiding your face because you're ugly..."

"I see. You've unraveled my plans." Obito drawled, and this time there was no mistaking the amusement. It seemed he could lose with grace. "I'll have to come up with a better plan then... to one-up your brother."

He stood up then and, in a move which floored me, raised his arm for a hand-shake.

"No hard feelings, Tsubaki-chan?"

I reached to shake, his larger hand completely covering my own. Bending my neck, I focused on the mask's small hole, trying to look him in the eye.

"No hard feelings, Kamen-san. I won't even tell Isamu that you failed. It will be our little secret."

His grip tightened for a second then he stepped back and was gone. I don't know if it was at normal shinobi speed, a shunshin or his Kamui, but he had disappeared in the blink of an eye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) **Kamen-san** \- loosely Masked Man; literally Mister Mask
> 
> (2) **Kaguya-hime** \- The Bamboo Princess
> 
> (3) **Tsuru-Nyoubou** \- Crane Wife, the main character from 'Tsuru no Ongaeshi' - 'The Crane's Return of a Favour'
> 
> (4) **Ushi-Oni** \- Ox Demon (originally: a horrible sea-monster with the head of an ox, whose other name is Gyuuki; minor character in 'The Wizard who Put a Kingdom to Sleep')
> 
> (5) **Jikininki** \- Human Eating Ghosts; (originally: former people cursed after death eat corpses. May take the shape of an actual human but display a few inhuman characteristics like glowing eyes or claws; minor character in 'The Wizard who Put a Kingdom to Sleep')
> 
> (6) **Muhito** \- literally Nothing Man
> 
> -0-0-0-0-0-
> 
> The words in bold in parentheses (where Tsubaki's reviewing her previous opinions) will probably make more sense in the following chapter.


	5. Fallout

**Warnings** : non-graphic references to torture

* * *

 **Chapter 5** : Fallout

(Two years before the present day; some time after the meeting with the masked Uchiha)

What followed were three otherwise normal - boring, routine - weeks...taken for granted. I would wake up to the sound of Isamu shuffling around the house, getting ready for work. We would eat breakfast in silence, my brother reading one of his ridiculous magazines while I doodled in a notebook, thinking wild dreams of the future. I would see him in the afternoon when we would usually quibble about what to watch on TV. After an early dinner he would go out in the evenings, to hang out with one or more of his friends and I would only see him the next morning.

On Tuesday evening, my brother didn't come home. Neither did he come home the next day... Or the next... A tired-looking, middle-aged shinobi visited on the Friday, spouting nonsense. Yamada Isamu, shinobi ID 1D-844, had not attended work for three days. He did not appear to have left with information above his clearance level but would nevertheless, after a two-week period of absence - 'as per regulations', be labeled a missing-nin.

Isamu... my lazy brother who was a career genin with little to no ambitions... Isamu, who held a desk job as an inventory manager at a shinobi supply store. I recall trying to stifle my hysterical laughter. I had unknowingly set my brother up. ' _Missing-nin? No, good sir, you see, the S-class criminal I **invited for tea**  roughly four weeks ago must have taken him for a friendly chat.'_

I must have thanked the man and closed the door, because I found myself leaning against it, clutching my mouth, trying to stop the shivers, the clenching stomach and the rising bile. _'Who else would dare? But why? Oh, because... I couldn't find another way of throwing suspicion off myself... because I thought it safe... because I thought it_ _ **noble**_ _to write about these troubled people... to give them a chance..._ '

I remembered the Uchiha's handshake... 'No hard feelings, Tsubaki-chan?'

' _Fuck you, you monster.'_

-0-0-0-0-0-

I knew I had to pack. I wouldn't be able to live in Tani by myself. But first, I would finish the Ame orphans' tale. And while I would show no more misguided compassion for either Nagato or Konan, the true villain of the piece would be the Uchiha: a heinous devil, tempting a brokenhearted Adam and Eve with his perversion of heaven.

* * *

( _excerpt from Chapter 1 of_  The Three Brothers of Vice)

Once upon a time, in a secret place between mountains, deserts and forests there was a realm of great beauty, of lush grasses and grain fields that swayed in the breeze, of magnificent trees whose branches, heavy with fruit, bent their boughs to rest among thousands of fragrant flowers. The hidden paradise of Kami no Kajuen(1) was watched over by Midorimaru, a stern youkai king. Under his watchful rule nature's bounty was always plentiful and the people flourished.

But in times of peace the sins of man are ofttimes allowed to grow. They fester and spread like boils on blighted animal.

Around Midorimaru's domain, the hard mountain people, the sly desert people and the proud forest people grew wretched and greedy. In the throne-halls of the great kingdoms the kings and their advisers gathered and plotted.

Soon, the great kingdoms turned to war and a hundred thousand bloodthirsty warriors set forth. Slews of warriors crossed the borders, often doing battle in Midorimaru's domain. So intent were they on destroying each other that they carelessly defiled the hidden paradise. If it was not the the forest people and their fiery drakes who would burn the crop fields in their haste then the short-tempered mountain people would turn orchards into deadly swamps.

A year passed, and then ten.

Watching his senseless devastation, Midorimaru's heart grew cold and his mind clouded. Gathering his own army, he sent a message to all of the great leaders: any and all who would trespass upon his domain would meet a swift death.

His army's demonic steeds crushed the outsiders' infantry, his elemental summons rent the mountain folk's giant eagles and when there wasn't a single outsider alive in Kami no Kajuen, the mad youkai king turned his eyes to his own people.

-0-0-0-0-0-

( _excerpts from Chapter 4 of_  The Three Brothers of Vice)

Michi weaved through the lower level youkai, slashing left - right - down, without slowing his run. Swiftly he jumped over the fallen colonnades, across the broken tiles and over the dead and the dying, his eyes trained on Midorimaru and his unconscious captive.

Behind him, tendrils of fire slithered across the temple ruins, guided unerringly by Katsuo's will. They twined around the injured demons, felling any who had survived Michi's strikes. When the grey-haired general tried to halt their advance by calling upon a deluge of icy water, Michi gathered his own swirling magic and, surrounded by the angry power like a blazing cloak, rushed through the torrent.

"You should have stepped aside,  _traitor_!" Michi spat, swinging his sword in an arch, past the demon's startled face, across his shoulder and chest, the legendary blade cleaving him in half.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The battlefield was shrouded in smoke, the ground covered in a blanket of ruined corpses. Huddled under a broken arch, Katsuo's nails were tearing at the runes inscribed on Osamu's chest, frantically whispering incantation after  _blasted_  incantation, something - anything - to keep his brother from succumbing to the poisonous essence seeping from the markings.

"Oh, that looks... deadly." a cruel voice rasped from above. Lounging on top of the arch, his head resting in the crook of his arm, was a hooded figure radiating a cold, malicious aura. "...And after such heavy losses, to die now would be... such a pity."

"Are you one of the tyrant's allies? What do you want? Speak." demanded Katsuo, a lightning spell already glowing at his fingers.

"Want... want..." the figure whispered slowly, as if tasting the word and all its possible meanings.

"I want nothing much... not much at all. And as a show of good faith, I'll even heal your wounded ally... no strings attached."

* * *

I sent the manuscript with a random street urchin - paid in hard ryo, not candy - and joined a caravan going in the direction of my village. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that I couldn't settle back in my childhood home but I needed the comforting presence of my father and the safety of a home even if it was only a temporary illusion. It would help keep me grounded while I figured out how to move forward. How to pay that bastard back, him and all the damned Akatsuki, every last 'tragically misunderstood' one of them.

So they had learnt nothing... My books had failed, had they? It was too late to come out and share all I knew with the proper authorities, even if I had faith that they wouldn't damage me in the process. I had wrongly bet on the good intentions of bad people, but no matter, I could console myself that just as there's more than one way to skin a cat, there would be more than one way to win a war.

I (Leo) might not have had any military training but you don't become a successful coastal engineer without a background in Process and Chemical Engineering and without a good grasp of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry. If I could write five books without any literary background or talent, I could damn well design a proto-gun. I would need to research reactive substances but if my (Soo-Jin) memories were correct, Iwagakure no Sato had a squadron of dedicated explosive specialists and in a mountainous land such as Tsuchi no Kuni(3) even civilians would need some means of reshaping the countryside for their use. I would simply have to find the right explosive compounds and make a deal with a smith.

* * *

(ROOT Compound, Konohagakure no Sato)

"Fū. Report."

"I conducted the mind procedure. The subject had no knowledge of the author's identity or any accomplices. He himself was not an accomplice. He had no knowledge of any involvement from his family members other than his civilian sibling being given candy to carry a package from a masked stranger to editor Matsuda Akira."

"And the civilian sibling? A possible sleeper agent?(4)"

"Highly improbable. A six year old with average scholastic performance and bottom G rank chakra levels. Shou reported no inconsistencies in behavior."

"Continue."

"The subject's only intervention regarding the incident was a reprimand to the effect that it was suspicious for an ANBU to request civilian help and that she should have been more circumspect. The girl's reaction was mild shock, moderate fear and shame for the reprimand. The reactions appeared genuine and were consistent with Shou's report."

"And the other messengers?"

"Shou had a 80% match on two children but nothing definite."

"Anything else of note?"

"The subject's security clearance was genin rank. We managed to obtain limited information on Tani's weapon supplies. He is currently in an enforced medical coma."

"Have Kin analyse the body for any useful information then dispose of it. Have Shou pursue the other two leads. Ensure that Uchiha Sasuke has no access to any copies of the texts. Dismissed."

Finally alone in the shadowed room, Shimura Danzo's lone visible eye narrowed imperceptibly.  _'What game are you playing now, Itachi?'_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) **Kami no Kajuen** \- Orchard of the Gods
> 
> (2) Behind the name: Michi - path; Katsuo - victory; Osamu - discipline.
> 
> (3) **Tsuchi no Kuni** \- Land of Earth
> 
> (4) Sleeper agents would still need training in stealth and infiltration and/or shinobi-level chakra. Sasori's seals are not common. Otherwise every intelligence division would know to check for them and the Suna event would have gone much differently.
> 
> -0-0-0-0-0-
> 
> There are no gods in the machine, only devils. Danzo... what timing you have. If she hadn't been spooked by the meeting with Obito, she might have been writing. All in all, Danzo's blaming Itachi for the leaks, Tsubaki is blaming Obito for Isamu's disappearance, who will the Ame nin blame when they read the Three Brothers of Vice? :)


	6. Status Change, Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The death of a loved one can be a deeply traumatizing event. More so if one feels any guilt over it. However, I won't dwell long on Tsubaki's grief. I don't think I can truly do justice to such an experience and I don't want angst to be the primary focus of this story.

**Chapter 6** : Status Change, Part 1

_The five weeks leading to Tsubaki's departure from Tani were split between finishing the manuscript for 'The Three Brothers of Vice' and learning to cope with the elder brother's disappearance, though - at least initially - the girl's coping 'mechanism' was more akin to a broken tool than any healthy process. The days passed as in a dream, with the apparent six year old lazing around the increasingly filthy apartment, dazedly moving from room to room, aimlessly moving items around while waiting for a brother who would never come back._

_In the young girl's mind the blame was shared equally between herself and the masked Uchiha but while she could demonize Obito in writing or curse him out loud, she could do little to assuage her own feelings of guilt._

_The trip to her father's village was done in silence on the Yamada's part. She had informed the caravan leader of her desire to join, had paid the fare and then retreated to the safety of one of the many covered wagons. Any questions or attempts of conversation were either answered with clipped, curt replies or silence, until even the most sociable of her fellow travelers stopped trying to include the sullen child in their discussions._

-0-0-0-0-0-

The home was just as Tsubaki remembered it, her room was untouched, her early childhood haven covered in a thick layer of dust. She dropped her pack in a corner and made for the library, where her father found her, many hours later, after returning from a long session with the village council. In a weary monotone she told him Tani's version of Isamu's disappearance - defection - and held the old man as he cried. Ichiro, the eldest child, would only find out months later, when returning from a long trade commission in Hi no Kuni(1)'s capital. By then, Tsubaki herself would have once more left the village, this time in the company of more questionable individuals.

* * *

While  _his_  eyes were bloodshot and ringed with dark circles, while  _he_  grew distant and grim, my father wouldn't let me handle my grief as I chose. I was to spend at least a few hours outside the house, assisting the village-folk in their various chores.

Though I should have, perhaps, alternated between the many choices my father had provided, I usually settled for helping Sato Hiroto with cleaning the store, re-stocking the shelves and checking the balance. Old man Hiroto was the amiable owner of our village's convenience store, a two room shop that supplied everything from trawling equipment and carpentry tools - indispensable to a fishing village - to canned goods and liquor. He was one of the more tolerable of elderly villagers because he neither patronized me on account of my age nor did he push for conversation when I was unwilling to provide one.

On that particular day, I had insisted on staying behind to organize some of the newer merchandise.

Hiroto-san had been complaining of neck pains for a couple of weeks now and I had finally forced him to visit the village physician as he couldn't move his head without grimacing in pain, let alone be of any help with the customers. The business hours had passed by smoothly. Most of the villagers waited patiently while I took care of their orders and some even helped retrieve the heavier pieces. But after closing the shop and handling the register, I still had four boxes of new merchandise to go through.

Four boxes usually meant four item types. The expected four item types had turned out to be a jumble of delicately painted china and pottery, silver and gold jewelry, silken tapestries, liquor bottles and small statues. A real kid might have been excited at stumbling upon such a treasure trove, but I could feel a headache building. Hiroto-ojiisan, one of the few people I still liked, was a smuggler.

-0-0-0-0-0-

It took Tsubaki two days to muster up the courage to confront the old man about the source of his suspicious goods but the conversation itself was anticlimactic. After inquiring after his ailment, his hunger, thirst and general comfort level, after fluffing the old man's pillows, bringing him two more blankets, a glass of water and a cup of tea, Hiroto sighed and, seizing the girl's hand, he gently pulled her to sit on the duvet.

"This is unlike you, Tsubaki-chan." the old man said softly, patting the young girl's hair. "Sit still and tell me what troubles you. If it is simply worry over my health, then let me assure you there are a great many years left in these old bones. Nothing can put Sato Hiroto down."

"Is that why you're tempting fate by bringing illegal goods in my father's village?" Tsubaki whispered between grit teeth.

"Oh, I left the boxes out, did I? There's nothing for it, then... A few luxuries keep the people happy, Tsubaki-chan. If the daimyo wasn't so shortsighted and greedy, smuggling affairs wouldn't prosper."

"You're finding excuses because they are your affairs, Hiroto-ojiisan." the girl countered with a frown. "But you mentioned the daimyo, which leads me to believe that these goods are from lands we don't commonly engage in trade with or with which the taxes are particularly high... In the first case, the daimyo would restrict trade so as not to favour unallied villages but" Tsubaki added, pursing her lips "in the second case he would do so to protect Kawa no Kuni's economy."

A small smile was her answer and the old man's eyes twinkled as he replied.

"You're correct on both counts, Tsubaki-chan." He continued more soberly, "However, know that my suppliers only bring goods from Tsuchi, Tetsu and sometimes Mizu no Kuni(2). Our friends and neighbours are exempt from the affairs. My family has lived here for four generations. I enable these transactions for the betterment of the village, not its downfall."

"And… these associates?"

"Lawless people, to be sure, but with a moral code of their own, nonetheless."

Wordlessly, Tsubaki left for the kitchen. She washed the dirty dishes, cooked a small pot of rice, fried a few pieces of bass and made a second pot of tea, mind whirling furiously all the while. An hour later, she calmly returned to the old man's room, bearing dinner on a tray.

"May I assume their moral code matches yours, Hiroto-ojiisan?"

"Mine, Tsubaki-chan?"

"Do they work with bandi.."

"They are businessmen, not murderers and thieves." the elder quickly interjected, a note of reproof in his usually kind voice.

"In that case, Hiroto-ojiisan, please consider me an associate, of sorts. In return, I will not tell my father of these dealings."

The man's demeanor grew stern.

"This isn't a children's game. My associates are still labeled as outlaws. I may not wish our honor besmirched, but neither will I have you consorting with dangerous people or… or… criminals."

Tsubaki tried to stifle a mournful laugh "Too late for that, old man. At best, you could direct me towards some who are harmless to me."

"What are you talking about, child?!" Hiroto whispered in a mildly panicked voice, trying to raise himself to a sitting position. "Is the gossip about your brother true, then? Did he trully defect from Tani's shinobi force? Is he in trouble?"

"My brother's business was his own." the girl ground out, looking pained. "But I would be in your debt if you would let me talk to your associates."

"Are you certain?"

A firm nod. "Yes."

"You realize that it will be hard for anyone who hasn't see you grow up to treat you as a young genius, Tsubaki-chan. In everyone's eyes you will be a brat running underfoot."

"A  _young genius_ … No, that label is false in any case. But if I joined in your meetings, Hiroto-ojiisan, they would grow used to me. Perhaps, at some point, I would be able to provide some valuable input or find another way to prove my worth."

"An hour ago you were angry with me for these connections and now you want them for your own. What changed?"

"I can't tell you that."

"You must." Hiroto insisted, holding tightly onto the girl's small hands. "If you want my help, you will."

The two engaged in a lengthy stare.

"I need... some documents regarding materials specific to Tsuchi no Kuni."

"Why?"

"Research."

"The kind of documents you cannot ask your father to send for?"

"Yes."

"What sort of materials?"

A beat. "The sort that are not dangerous for this village." Tsubaki evenly replied, mentally tagging ' _... **this** village._'

Hiroto took some time to consider the girl's unexpected request. He slowly drank his cooling tea, idly tapping a finger against the brown porcelain.

"... You will be helpful, respectful and quiet unless spoken to."

"Thank you."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) **Hi no Kuni** \- Land of Fire
> 
> (2) **Tsuchi no Kuni** \- Land of Earth;   
> **Tetsu no Kuni** \- Land of Iron;   
> **Mizu no Kuni** \- Land of Water;


	7. Interlude: Ame

**Interlude** : Ame

(three weeks after the death of Akasuna no Sasori, Pain's Tower, Ame)

It started - as it generally did - with the rain picking up, the soothing patter growing to a furious staccato which beat louder and louder against the window-pane. Having a visual representation of Nagato's state of mind was usually helpful. The long years as Ame's God had made her friend increasingly taciturn and, as Konan herself was not a talkative person, most conversations between the two of them had gradually dwindled to orders and reports, with an occasional enquiry into the efficiency of an Akatsuki member or Ame shinobi.

She mourned, sometimes, not only for Yahiko - the loss of whom had permanently destroyed the triad - but for Nagato himself - her shy childhood friend ( _the quiet, melancholy one_ ), her companion and leader ( _patient but sternly demanding_ ), who was trying to teach the world a lesson it would never be truly ready to learn.

However, today she was trying to finish a stack of mission allocations and, even ensconced in the safety of her private office, Konan found the rhythmic thumping grating.

The office, a sixteen-by-sixteen feet(1) room on the tower's east side, was her sanctuary; a haven sparse in furniture but rich in design. Tall, ornate bookcases with glass doors lined three of the walls from floor to ceiling and an intricately carved desk faced the large sliding sash windows.

Whenever the tedium of paperwork threatened to overwhelm her, she would open them widely to the rain and sit on the thick frame, breathing in the humid air while folding some particularly tricky piece of art or reading whatever book of fiction she had stashed in the cloak pocket that morning. The room itself had little in the form of entertainment.

On the shelves, ordered by subject and difficulty level - and interspersed by some of her most impressive creations - were jutsu, history and administrative scrolls, books on law and procedure and - devilishly well-warded - financial ledgers and mission reports for both the Akatsuki and Ame.

The sole useless piece of art - as her origami creations were made with explosive tags which could, as a last resort, be used to destroy the sensitive information in the room before it fell into enemy hands - was the ceiling.

The top of the room, aside from a star-shaped light, was painted with whimsical scenes of wood sprites jumping in rain puddles, weaving baskets or painting tree leaves with splotches of autumn colors in preparation for the harvest season; little red and brown imps dancing around a beachside bonfire or stealing old men's boots. A third of it had - at Nagato's request - been repainted with clouds and forested mountains, because a "God could not be seen frolicking in the rice fields, making grass chains and mud castles or playing with fish, especially when depicted as a doe-eyed water spirit".

Konan would have argued that Kakuzu was the only one to regularly join her in this office as they went over the financial reports and Kakuzu wouldn't pay attention to anything lacking monetary value. And even if he had paid attention, it would have been highly unlikely for anyone to guess the allegorical meaning of the murals.

Indeed, she would have argued this point had Madara, the wily beast, not taken notice himself, before Nagato had ordered the ceiling repainted.

Even now, on those rare occasions when Pain seemed to be in a good mood, Madara used the knowledge to needle him, calling him 'little water God'. If the nettling continued for more than a couple of offhand remarks, Nagato reacted with either a frigid stare or a cold remark, but Konan felt that, at least in these instances, Madara's words were more teasing than taunting.

And as with his Tobi persona, she wondered, at times, if a ruthless and cruel man such as Uchiha Madara was so flawlessly devious or if he still, impossibly, held traces of childlike innocence and humor.

This question had lodged itself in her mind and skulked there, like a particularly unwelcome shadow, rearing its head whenever Madara forwent his cold and stern demeanor. And the idea had constantly broken her immersion as she read one of Muhito's latest fairy-tale stories 'The Three Brothers of Vice'. The parallels between the sly, scheming shapeshifter Gensou(2), the apparent benefactor of the main trio, Michi, Katsuo and Osamu and the Akatsuki's own apparent benefactor, the sly, scheming and ever-masked Uchiha were marked.

It was worrisome that someone had enough information on her and her friends to convincingly recreate their lives in an alternate universe but more disturbing was the way the tale ended. As with Muhito's previous books, there was no absolute fairytale ending.

Katashi -  _Sasori_ , Konan privately amended - dead. Ginko -  _Hidan_  - dead. Michi, Katsuo, Osamu -  _Nagato, he-herself, Yahiko_  - presumed dead.

And the book had, throughout the tale, left hints as to the identity of the culprit. With a small start, she realized she had been unconsciously folding and unfolding a rose. Konan could commend the author for thoroughly disturbing her mental stability. It took boldness, brilliance and a lot of classified information to conduct such successful psychological warfare.

She was, even now, questioning the intentions of their longtime ally, making contingency plans for Hidan's possible demise, drawing parallels between Hideki's role in the genocide of the fire youkai and Itachi's massacre of the Uchiha while mentally searching for clues regarding the protagonist of the sixth book in the series.

Konan could feel the headache worsening and the downpour was not helping matters. Ever since Zetsu had returned with the books, Nagato had been alternating between  _brooding_  silence and  _hostile, explosive_  silence, the latter of which had left Hidan and Deidara in the hospital when one of their disputes had ended destroying his office.

_Tobi_ 's seemingly childish questions had only goaded the two quick-tempered members and, if conscious, Deidara was probably wondering why and how Tobi had escaped unscathed.

Konan herself was certain that, as tense as things were now between Nagato and Madara, it had taken an immense amount of self-control on the part of the former to stop himself from attacking his ally. Though they had not discussed their individual findings, the suspicions were obviously shared.

Twisting a fold under a paper balcony, Konan impassively considered the white tower model. It bothered her that, of the six volumes, 'The Three Brothers of Vice' and 'The Prince with Eyes Like the Sun' had no clear heroes and villains and, likewise, no clear deaths. Gensou may  _or may not_ have betrayed the three brothers… Shin(3) may _or may not_  have been betrayed by the Shinigami. Either Muhito's information was incomplete and, in writing an open-ended story he was hedging his bets, or he was, for an unknown reason, unwilling to fully divulge Gensou's plans or set Shin's future in stone.

As the sun set lower over the water, Konan's mind slowly drifted away from the puzzle the stories presented, away from her stack of paperwork, away from Nagato's worries and burdens and her own fears and frustrations.

While she added yet another spire to the glorious paper tower, she found herself whispering the song a bard had sung in 'The Three Brothers of Vice'. ' _The halcyon days are smoldering, the world's heart blackening in the rain, the Kami's wrath has nothing to do with heaven... and everything to do with pain, I will bury you, I will bury you, I will bury you, all of you…_ '

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) sixteen feet ~ five metres;
> 
> (2) Behind the name: Gensou - illusion;
> 
> (3) Behind the name: Shin - written with the kanji for true (真);
> 
> *random author fact* while writing the poem I actually found myself humming a tune, so the 'bard song'-poem is now actually a song. :)


	8. Status Change, Part Two

**Chapter 8** : Status Change, Part 2

(previously)

**"... You will be helpful, respectful and quiet unless spoken to."**

**"Thank you."**

-0-0-0-0-0-

I decided, after four months of shadowing Hiroto-san in the meetings with his suppliers, that his main contact - one " _Houjou Souta, recently of ...here-and-there, pleasure to make your acquaintance, child. If we **must**  speak, you may address me as Houjou-dono or Houjou-sama._" - was, in spite of his foppish manner and enormous arrogance - my new role-model.

I had seen plenty of shinobi in Tani, perhaps the whole spectrum from clumsy and loud to silent and efficient; the swift-runners and the heavy-lifters. Therefore, I should have - in theory at least - become immune to the sight of normal looking people displaying 'super-powers'.

So having an impeccably dressed Souta-san send a subordinate through a tree shouldn't have been too surprising. And it wouldn't have been, if not for the fact that Houjou Souta, the terribly conceited but cheerful-looking man with saggy cheeks that quivered when he spoke and a stutter that came out when he was angry - though he had rarely appeared angry during the business negotiations, was an untrained civilian.

It was a classic case of crouching moron, hidden bad ass achieved, as I would later discover, with the help of masterful embroidery.

* * *

For all that Hiroto-san and Souta-san were friends as well as business associates, Hiroto-ojiisan had been unable to secure me the research materials I wanted. Perhaps Souta-san was inaccurate in his descriptions or his subordinates not diligent enough in their search, but all the books and scrolls that I received held quasi-useless information with which I couldn't even make a firecracker, let alone a prototype bullet.

Four months of grunt work and pointless waiting and I had been just about ready to tear my hair out when I witnessed Souta-san's moment of glory, aka the magnificent slap that sent Jiro..or Hiro - a spotty teenager who liked to trip me when I was carrying things and whom I privately referred to as lanky-minion - through a tree.

* * *

With my eyes newly opened to an avenue of power, I worked doubly hard on becoming chummy with Souta-san, or as chummy as one can be to a man who thinks the sun shines out of his... ...Mostly I completed whatever tasks came up and, on the rare occasions when Hiroto-san gave me an opening, I displayed my knowledge of arithmetic and book-keeping, which were simple, elementary things for an adult but uncommon skills for a country-raised six-year old.

I would be the first to say that despite his overly inflated sense of self-worth, Houjou Souta was a shrewd businessman.

The passing of Gatou Takeshi, the founder of Gatou Company, had left a power vacuum. Because Gatou hadn't hired any particularly intelligent individuals - for fear of being robbed, back-stabbed and double-crossed, as he himself was wont to behave - in the wake of his death the foremost shipping company had fallen into chaos. The official assets of the richest man in the world had become prime pickings and every shady individual in the Elemental Nations wanted a piece of the pie, from the cowardly scavengers that were Gatou's former partners and underlings to the ruthless owners of rival shipping businesses.

An even more extensive loss was that the largest smuggling and drug-dealing operation in the elemental nations had fallen apart and the underground was struggling for resources to complete their contracts.

Souta-san had weaseled his way into the ownership of some of these smuggling contracts. Now, almost a year after starting their collaboration, a few of his new associates were testing the limits of their partnership. In reply to their annoying attempts at embezzling some of his profits, Souta-san had placed his own spies in their businesses, to monitor or sabotage, as the situation demanded.

A couple of months after upping my campaign of winning the smuggler over, the man came to Hiroto-san with a proposal. Instead of finding and transporting my research materials, Souta-san was offering Hiroto-san's " _little foundling_ " - as I had first been introduced to hide my connection to the village head - a fast-tracked apprenticeship followed by a position as one of his covert subordinates in a business operating out of Ashoro. Ashoro, one of Tsuchi no Kuni's largest civilian towns, was conveniently (for me) located a three-hour cart-ride away from the capital.

* * *

I took a week to consider the proposal. On the one hand, working under Souta-san meant working with and among shady people - opportunistic businessmen at best, the scum of the earth at worst - while gaining access to the resources I needed if I was to take any sort of action against the bastard Uchiha. On the other hand, it meant leaving my family and home again, without a strong lifeline this time and without explanation, for an indefinite length of time.

If the timeline was unchanged, I had maybe three or four more years before things came to a head. Even if I waited for another opportunity, a nine or ten year old's odds of making a living, by herself, in a foreign country, weren't looking good. Neither were the odds of passing information - which may or may not have been accurate; or which, due to my books of fairy-tales, may or may no longer be relevant - to ' _the Light side_ ' without explaining the source and scope of my knowledge or attracting the attention of one of the people whose secrets I had already spilled in writing, such as the manipulative Danzo.

What excuse could I give for focusing my attention on some people and not other, what defense did I have for not sharing what I knew of the invasion of Konoha, when I had simply been testing the limits and accuracy of my knowledge, since the invasion had been the biggest event I could get feedback on, as Kawa no Kuni and Hi no Kuni were neighboring countries. And how could I vouch for my trustworthiness, when I knew in my heart of hearts that, had Obito not personally wronged me, I would still be trying make my mark on history by helping divert the Akatsuki, the ultimate coalition of Big Bads, from their self-destructive path…

In the end, I accepted Houjou Souta's apprenticeship and focused on learning as much as I could from the crafty smuggler. He had after all, as an incentive, promised me the secret to his enhanced strength - possibly because he had seen my worship of the powerful hits (especially when the object of his ire happened to be lanky-minion, my personal tormentor).


	9. A Gale Through the Leaves

**Chapter 9** : A Gale Through the Leaves

It wasn't glorious... that first fight. We had been commissioned to carry certain items from Tsurui, a sleepy little village doubling as a base of operations for one of Souta-san's contacts. For this trip Souta-san had selected a party of eight: four of the 'wandering warriors' he kept on retainer, two brawny, towering servants who carried our cargo, himself and I.

We had just finished breaking camp when they rushed from inside the forest.

Two, six, ten, twenty - ugly, horrible, huge men. Our bodyguards met them head on. Shun stormed the ones on the left. He saw an opening, ducked under a swing to thrust a dagger in the raider's neck.  _One._  A spurt of blood and he was back, dodging a cleaver to the shoulder and a foot to the shin. He twisted low to the ground and tripped the second bandit. The man lost his footing and as he stumbled, Shun ran him through.  _Two_.

Parry, bend back from the punch, slash - but the bastard wasn't there anymore. Turning, Hisao followed his movement to plant a foot in the man's gut. The bandit had bent over but Hisao wasn't stopping ...and the man's head rolled with a spurt of blood.  _Three._  Someone grabbed me around the middle and was dragging me to the away from the battle. To my left, Yusuke screamed and lunged over a dead man. His blow connected with a crunch, and he man dropped, his chest crushed by the hammer. At Yusuke's feet, two other mangled corpses.  _Four_.  _Five_.  _Six_.

I wasn't struggling. I don't know if some corner of my mind recognized Souta-san presence or if I was still paralyzed by the violence. Movies had  **nothing**  on reality. I remember feeling as if I was choking, gasping great breaths and still unable to draw air.

In front of me, Taro was thrusting his yari at an injured bandit. The hit connected - the man speared through the belly.  _Seven_. ...then the yari was quickly pulled back to parry a hit from above. He slammed his knee in the attacker's chest then jumped backwards with a curse. Flinging a blood-stained arm, he blinded his enemy who faltered in his attack. A thrust... a second man's gut opened by the sharp pike.  _Eight_.

I could hear Shun's laugh, shrill and terrible as his own opponent crumpled into a pile.  _Nine_.

But one of the bandits had spotted us and I could see him running past our guards. They hadn't noticed him yet. Souta-san swore behind me and he was dragging me harder. But I couldn't tear my eyes from the bandit rushing us and my legs wouldn't budge... and my arms wouldn't move and I was trying - trying so hard - to  _simply breathe_. He was closer, grinning, saying something and I still  _couldn't breathe_ , I couldn't breathe...

* * *

When I woke up, I found myself swaddled in a couple of large coats, resting against a tree. My whole back felt stiff and my head was pounding. Someone had started a fire and the men were gathered around it, sharing dinner and speaking in low tones.

I took the time to look all of the warriors over. They had had time to wash and bandage their wounds. Yusuke's arm was in a sling and Hisao's head was heavily bandaged. Taro was eating with his right hand - though he was left-handed from what I recalled - and Shun was nursing a large mug, even though he usually declined drinking.

We must have traveled quite a long way because the woods had finally given way to sparsely forested hills and grasslands. We had set camp not far from a small stream and I was suddenly grateful for Souta-san fastidious nature. He was a rare soul who had somehow managed to hold on to his belief that cleanliness was akin to godliness while wandering the world - mountains, deserts, swamps and all - on foot and this personal habit worked well with keeping his fighters healthy, at least by providing the means to lower the risk of infections. It also worked well with my 'civilian sensibilities'.

As Souta-san's apprentice I wasn't expected to know how to hunt or forage for our meals but would've still been expected to cope with trudging through the wilderness like a near savage for weeks on end. His frequent stops at - and detours to - any sources of water made the journeys bearable. Souta-san would teach me little while we were on the road and even less when he was feeling uncomfortable.

For all his quirks though, in the three months that I had been travelling with him I had grown to genuinely enjoy having him as a teacher. I wasn't looking forward to the day when he would declare the apprenticeship complete and I would have to take up my post in Ashoro. I knew that the times he would visit would be few and far between and I would be left to stew in my grief, hate and guilt, making wild, improbable - and I will admit, often ludicrous - revenge plans for arming monsters to fight other monsters(1).

Looking at the somber party seated before the camp fire, I tried to envision one of the battlefields of the Fourth Shinobi War, a fighting ground a hundred times bigger than the one we had just left, dozens upon dozens of shinobi dying in the blink of an eye; from from staggeringly powerful jutsus, overwhelming combat prowess, a myriad weapons... old memories of the childish pictures meshing with more recent images of today's bloodbath.

My stomach churned and I quickly turned to retch in the grass. I couldn't remember the last time I had eaten but the dry heaves wouldn't stop as my gut tried to turn itself inside out. I tried to imagine an alternate future where the shinobi alliance would be equipped with modern weapons and non-chakra explosives to supplement their usual arsenal. Could a Mosquito(2), a Javelin or any other anti-tank missile pierce through the Sandaime Raikage's Raiton no Yoroi? Could anything short of a nuclear missile shatter Uchiha Madara's Susanoo? And, were that the case, could I  _really_ leave such a dangerous legacy to the formerly warmongering, power-hungry military villages, such a tantalizing inheritance to entice them to advance to the next level of warfare?

When the cramps subsided, I turned to lay on my back. What on earth  _should_  I do then? In my mind's eye I could see Uchiha Madara calling down the sky with his Tengai Shinsei(3), overwhelming Naruto with the stolen Jukai Koutan(4) and weaving between the members of the Fourth Division like a gale through the leaves, scattering them like broken dolls, leaving only shattered corpses in his wake.

As if conjured by the metaphor, the wind had picked up, starting a cursed whisper through the trees. I shivered. Above me, tiny leaves were raining down, some in the colors of the coming autumn, some still young, vivid green, all of them ripped by the sudden gust, spinning and swirling in their last dance. I remember sighing, rubbing my eyes in frustration and silently, ruefully musing  _'Just like a force of nature, eh, Madara? One successful strike and pouf!_   _Down they go, by the dozens, by the hundreds; a thousand, ten thousand, fifty thousand falling leaves.'_

Lazily brushing at some hair strands, I continued the mental rant. _'sixty thousand, eighty thousand, no, a hundred thousand dying leaves-'_ I recall frowning at the brief flash of awareness that came with the words, a suggestion my conscious mind wasn't fast enough to catch.

Less than a thought, barely a feeling, something was niggling in the back of my mind. I bit my lip, trying to focus on the slight, elusive notion.

 _'Why should I have stopped counting? What's that about? Falling leaves, dying leaves...'_ I was being driven crazy by my own metaphors. I silently repeated the words, over and over, trying to let go of the sudden, annoying impression that I was missing something _. 'a sudden gale and a hundred thousand falling leaves... a hundred thousand dying...'_

I sat up, heart beating madly, mind whirring with the beginning of a plan.  _'Hmm. Uchiha, you can't start a chess match with just a king and a queen...'_

I remembered Souta-san's lectures on how sealing techniques could be used for augmentation, modification and cloaking of physical attributes; his explanations of how chakra-infused threads had been used to embroider a seal which would bestow localized enhanced strength, for a limited amount of time, to the wearer of his Oishiken(5) silk gloves.

I needed to somehow bribe Souta-san into having his seal-master associate craft me a piece of equipment, one focused on transformation - into a small woodland critter if possible; no, better yet, a bird of some sort - activated and maintained with my nearly non-existent chakra (which just completed the illusion of a small and harmless animal).

If I could get that... If I could  _just_ get one piece of 'enchanted clothing', I didn't need to contact hostile shinobi with information about the upcoming conflict or share weapons with an alliance that wouldn't last. I wouldn't need to gamble on their potential for destruction or the accuracy of some random low-rank ninja when handling them.

After all, all I wanted was to make Uchiha Obito pay for his part in my brother's death. And  _I_  knew where he kept ...a hundred thousand white Zetsu clones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Tsubaki has just seen people butchered in front of her. Her perception of people who kill for a living, be they raiders or shinobi, has been altered, at least for a while.  
> (2) Italian anti-tank missile. (reference preferred due to Leo's memories)  
> (3) Tengai Shinsei - Shattered Heaven/Heaven Concealed, the technique Uchiha Madara uses together with his Susanoo to call down a meteor  
> (4) Jukai Koutan - Deep Forest Creation/Deep Forest Creation, a Mokuton/Wood Style technique Uchiha Madara can perform from having Senju Hashirama's DNA  
> (5) Oishiken - loosely translated: Great Stone Fist
> 
>  **Fuuinjutsu embroidery? Yes. How? So** :
> 
> Taking account what we know: (1) seals may be applied on anything, with or without ink; [example: Yondaime Hokage applies a seal, in battle, on Uchiha Obito].  
> (2) seals may be used to transfer, adapt and store chakra; [example: Naruto's seal, Killer B's seal, Tsunade's seal, etc]  
> (3) chakra infused and chakra conductive materials exist; [example: paper, metal, etc]  
> (4) seals can be made to passively absorb chakra until the moment when they are activated for a timed effect; [example: Tsunade's seal]
> 
> In the case of Houjou Souta's gloves, they constantly absorb some of his civilian-level chakra. In return, when the seal is at max-chakra level he may - and for a limited duration - use enhanced strength in his arms.
> 
> Not everyone is ready for heroics, especially when they are/are-in-the-body-of a six year old. In Tsubaki's case, during the first fight she witnessed, she hyperventilated and passed out. XD


	10. Two Minutes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline:
> 
> 3 years B.S.D. - Tsubaki (peasant - age 5) moves to Tanigakure no Sato to live with her older brother Isamu and write bibliographies of certain shinobi. These are written in the shape of children's stories and fairytales.
> 
> 2 years B.S.D. - Obito stumbles upon two of the four published children's stories. He asks Zetsu to investigate. After the investigation, Obito moves to gather information from the one lead Zetsu was able to provide. Isamu, Tsubaki's older brother, is kidnapped by ROOT and then killed. As the kidnapping occurs after her conversation with the masked Uchiha, Tsubaki blames Obito and herself for Isamu's disappearance and decides to use the knowledge from her alternate selves to devise weapons for the future Shinobi Alliance to use against the Uchiha.
> 
> 1.5 - 1 year B.S.D. - Tsubaki accepts the offer made by smuggler Houjou Souta to become his subordinate and apprentice - and later work as a covert agent - as it provides her with the opportunity to become a citizen of Tsuchi no Kuni and adapt their mining knowledge of explosives and blasting devices to her needs.
> 
> After the distressing experience of witnessing a bloody battle between Houjou's retainers and a group of bandits, she revises the decision of making weapons specifically for the Shinobi Alliance and instead resolves to sneak into the Akatsuki hideout in the Sangaku no Hakaba, the Mountains' Graveyard, and blow up the white Zetsu army held there in stasis.
> 
> Elsewhere, Hidan gets harassed by a gaggle of children who think he's some holy healing priest. (He's quick to disabuse them of that notion.)
> 
> 3 weeks A.S.D. - Konan finds Sasori's copy of 'The Demon Who Became a Boy and The Boy Who Became a Demon'. She brings it to Pain's attention while asking Zetsu to retrieve any other books written by the same author. Tensions are rising between the leaders of the Akatsuki.

**Warnings:** non-graphic animal cruelty; violence; foul language; Greenskeepers macabre lyrics.

* * *

**Chapter 10** : Two Minutes

" **No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy's main strength.** " (Helmuth von Moltke)

Working as an assistant manager at Ashoro's most exclusive inn was more of a paid holiday than a job. Initially, I was supposed to enter the owner's employ as a maid or cook, and work as a covert agent for Souta-san. However, the afore-mentioned owner - Nakamura Masato, a greedy but spineless coward - had, yet again, tried to shortchange Souta-san out of nearly 5 million ryou.

Unlike the previous reprisals, the smuggler's most recent show of force had thoroughly cowed him. By the time I was installed as an (almost overt) monitor together with Taro - who took the role of elder brother and guardian, the owner was reduced to a groveling wreck who tended to stay out of our way unless it was to provide me with access to the ledgers I requested.

I had a five-hour workday helping the actual manager with any unexpected staff or client problems followed by an hour of inspecting the inn's financial accounts. This left me plenty of time to plan my assault on the Mountains' Graveyard hideout. All my free time was spent experimenting with explosives, timed detonators and compiling a list of pre-requisites for the transformation I would undergo in order to sneak into the actual underground base.

There were a few requirements that stood out. The transformation target should be capable of flight. The underground was littered with Zetsu clones capable of telepathically informing each-other (and, by extension, the main Zetsu body) of any intruders approaching the Mountains' Graveyard, therefore nullifying any surprise attack or any attempt at stealth; a wild animal entering the secret compound would be only slightly less suspicious than a human.

A human-to-bird transformation would solve the issue of premature detection but not the second one. It would take a conscious suspension of disbelief to accept the idea of a hawk willingly flying through a cavernous system by its own design. An acceptable, if not ideal alternative was a bat. It meant learning not only how to fly - with a mind not designed for such pursuits - but also how to do so blind, guided by sound through echolocation, in a way the human brain was unused to perceiving its environment.

I agonized over the problem for days but, since nothing more suitable came to mind, it was what I settled on and what I requested from Souta-san in lieu of my wages: pieces of clothing with chakra-absorbing seals which would allow me to maintain a bat-shape transformation for a number of minutes, until the chakra ran out.

It took him six weeks to deliver the first piece, a leather wristband with an intricate seal, which I started wearing immediately.

In the meantime, I had Nakamura-san rent me a warehouse on the edge of town. There I tested the various compounds I had assembled, power and strength, brisance and density. I was aiming for an explosive with a high density and a large shattering capacity. If the fragmentation was great enough, metal shell would become a useful secondary weapon, and would possibly penetrate some weak barriers - though this was simply guesswork on my part as I had no chakra of my own to test my explosives against any actual barriers.

In addition to that, I was forced to redo a lot of tests because of sensitivity. Something about natural chakra created unusual deviations in the calculated sensitivity; new, unknown variables which I had trouble accounting for and which were seemingly affected by anything, from animals, to plants and even rocks to some degree. Chakra interference also affected the stability of the aggregates - while I was preparing them - which led me to believe that, illogically, even proximity to sources of chakra had a minute influence on the deterioration rate of the chemical compounds.

The success or failure of my plan hinged on the efficiency of these experimental explosives so I was forced to take drastic measures in order to counterbalance the unknowns which I couldn't rationally, mathematically account for. I am not proud of what I did, but I considered it necessary. Every week, without fail, I'd buy five or more crate-fulls of rats from the local urchins and stick them, by the dozen, inside a five-by-five metal container with that week's trial explosive.

Looking back, I think some of Nakamura-san's twitchiness stemmed from the fact that he couldn't be sure some of those rats wouldn't make their way into his luxury inn and completely ruin his business. But since he never asked what I wanted them for, I never bothered setting his mind at ease.

* * *

After the wristband was fully charged, I went to the edge of the forest nearest to the town for my first test flight.  **What is it like to fly?**  How many people have dreamed of growing wings and soaring into the air? I could provide  **one** answer to that first question. It's completely, utterly terrifying!

As I shifted into the smaller form, I found my body morphing faster than my mind could process the change. I was like a helpless babe, unable to handle the information I received from a host of new stimuli and my own, suddenly strange and unfamiliar senses. My new appendages felt wrong, clumsy and unwieldy, their weight disproportional to the mental image of my body.

I tried to lift myself from the ground, from the thick, sharp grass which was a much too painful cushion and managed to achieve flight through the panicked waving of my arms - wings, they were  _wings_  now. I screamed, trying to make my way by echolocation, but my brain was still sluggishly lagging behind. No obstacles presented themselves in my mind's eye.

By the time I hit the tree, I still had no idea what a tree sounded like.

My first attempted transformation resulted in a dislocated shoulder and two broken fingers - a painful reminder that all injuries acquired as a bat would transition from animal to human form. The duration too was very short, a downside to my nearly non-existent chakra levels. Further experimentation with  _one_  wristband proved that 32 such accessories would be necessary to complete the full, two-way flight and animal-to-human transformations required for planting all the charges; thirty-two chakra-draining seals which left me functioning - and looking - like a zombie.

I had only once traveled to the actual compound and the size of the cavern housing the Zetsu army was both alarming and awe inspiring. I lacked the sight to properly appreciate the endless lines of sleeping clones, arrayed like terracotta soldiers in the tomb of an ancient emperor, silently awaiting to serve him in afterlife. I could only form a vague image of the Gedou Mazou, like a gray on black image of a half-remembered sculpture pieced together from the sounds I had received during my erratic flight.

And when I  _would_  see these wonders with my own eyes, it would only be briefly, in between unsealing crates, activating countdown timers and flying to another section of the cave. It would, by then, be almost obscene to call myself a tourist. I knew with almost complete certainty that, while linked to each-other, the Zetsu clones were real individuals. Similar in personality and intellect perhaps, but a bee is no less worthy for being part of a hive than a fly for being alone.

If I considered them human, it was a massacre, the near annihilation of a genetically engineered species. If I forced myself to see them as sub-human monsters, it was still butchery. It made me aware that I was skirting dangerously close to crossing a moral line. It wouldn't stop me -  _'for Isamu.'_ I would tell myself  _'It will all be worth it, for Isamu'_ \- but I was aware.

-0-0-0-0-0-

As the morning of Operation Scatter-the-Uchiha's-Forces dawned bright and clear, my stomach was tied in knots. After mentally reviewing the steps, checking the supplies - twice -, laying out the gear, writing and discarding four different Last Will and Testament drafts, checking the supplies - again -, I had run out of busywork and found myself pacing the room, biting my cheek and trying to contain the rising hysteria.

The nerves made me increasingly pessimistic and, impulsively grabbing a brush and ink, I picked up the leather wristbands and embossed, in Leo's simplistic alphabet, a couple of words:  _Wile E_. Similarly, each of the explosive packages was stamped with the promising acronym:  _ACME_. I comforted myself that at least this way, if I was caught, killed or blew myself up in the attempt, at least the irony would keep me warm.

In retrospect I ask myself, why did I tempt fate?

* * *

For the first part of the journey I took Taro with me on an impromptu two day camping trip, until we were forty miles away from the hideout, east by north east. I left him at the roadside inn with the promise that I wouldn't stray too far from the road in my efforts to find a suitable spot for my... meditation. After a light dinner, I left the small village for the second part of the operation, the hour long flight to the hideout and the nerve-wrecking infiltration.

The weather held and no unforeseen winds or unexpected rain showers troubled my already difficult flight. As I had done once before, I flew inside the cavern system, through a half-collapsed passageway leading into a tall but very narrow tunnel, swerving right at the first split and down the long flight of stairs at the second divide. The massive chamber opened before me, like a grand palace hall whose distant walls I could barely sound out.

This was it. I alighted on a narrow ledge to the right of the entrance, as close to the liquid as I had dared, removed the transformation and, with my heart in my throat and hands shaking so much I could barely hold on to the wall, unsealed the first explosive and activated the timer.

_Two minutes._

I threw the now useless wristband next to the explosive, unwilling to have it drain any more of my chakra. Another transformation and I was flying clockwise around the wall, to set the second charge.

Land, transform, unseal, activate and fly. - A pattern I should have repeated, back in Ashoro, until it was as familiar to me as breathing; a pattern I had been unable to repeat, due to the prohibitively long time it took for the seals to charge.

_One minute and fifty seconds._

My mind should have been empty of everything save the mission's objectives, my body focused solely on the necessary actions. Instead, by the seventh charge, I was getting overwhelmed by having performed so many transformations in quick succession. With the way my mind was lagging behind the actual body switch, I felt as if I was both human and bat, with both arms and wings, with sight and without.

_One minute._

I nearly missed my next landing because I had forgotten that, as a human, my legs went down and my head up when resting. Panic built in my chest as my mind quickly provided explicit images of what would happen to me should I fall among the Zetsu clones.

Unseal, activate and fly.  _Fifty seconds._

To top it off, one of my (Soo-Jin's) memories of drunken sing-alongs had popped in my mind just as I was descending to set the second charge along the western wall. I focused on regulating my flight with the song's disturbing lyrics playing in my mind, crooned in my own (former) voice. "... _the look inside your eyes drives me from control, evoking visions of my favorite casserole. _And if i eat your heart..._ " _Land, transform, unseal, activate and fly. _" _I'll also bite your soul... and when i'm done with that, I'll use your skull as a bowl...__ " - I flapped my wings closer to the ledge, trying to reconcile the impossibility of shuddering with a bat's nervous system (in both fear and revulsion) with my absolute desire to do.

I flew too hard and crashed, feet first, into the wall. The pain! I quickly transformed and wiped the damned tears that had sprung unbidden, clouding my sight. With shaking hands, barely able to see the charges, I desperately tried to smother my sniffles and whimpers. I was already five seconds late! Unseal, activate and fly.

' _Just a little bit longer_ ' I chanted to myself, ' _Just a little bit longer. Two more, just a little bit longer._ '

_Fifteen seconds._

Out of the chamber I flew, up the stairs and down the halls, through the tunnel and past the collapsed passage as, behind me, the large chamber erupted in flames.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Focusing on maintaining proper flight trajectory while my brain translated echolocation to some comprehensible human signal was hard enough when I was healthy and rested. Now, I felt as if my lower half was trying to tear itself free. My body was on fire and I could barely think past the growing torment, let alone steer. I could feel my control wavering to the sharp beat of the pulsating pain.

Not four miles into the flight, I hesitated on a turn and crashed into a branch. Agony! My wing snapped and I couldn't hold back a scream. The transformation came undone and I fell to the ground, human again, battered and bloody.

I remember dragging myself to rest against against a tree trunk and cursing myself for my shortsightedness. Manic laughter bubbled out of my throat. I had so foolishly forgotten the old adage 'No plan survives contact with the enemy' and had packed no supplies to deal with the heavy injuries that I had now sustained. ' _Damn it all!_ ' I swore to myself ' _I was meant for more than a Pyrrhic victory_ '. Much good it had done me, massacring the Zetsu army, if I wasn't around to enjoy my success, if I bled to death now, an unnamed assailant rotting on the forest floor of some deep wilds.

My stomach rebelled at the sight of the bone that was almost jutting out of my left forearm and both of my legs hurt so much that I could barely force myself to stay awake; skin and flesh was rent around my right knee, both legs were black and blue and my left ankle was either sprained or broken.

My remaining wristbands were out of chakra and it would take at least a couple of weeks for them to recharge. I couldn't fly home, my legs were useless, my left arm was broken and I was slowly bleeding to death. ' _Fine, Fate, screw you. I'll crawl if I have to._ '

Slowly and with some difficulty, I started peeling off my shirt. It took an eternity to drag it off without aggravating my wounds and still, I must have blacked out when I was trying to slide it over my broken arm. When I came around it was nearly nightfall. With just my right hand and my teeth I started tearing large strips out of the dirty cloth, to try and splinter my arm and stem the bleeding above my right knee.

I was on my third strip, my teeth already aching with the strain when, not twenty feet in front of me, a face morphed out of the thick, moss-covered trunk of an old beech. ' _Gods, not now, please_.' - an ardent but useless plea.

I had stopped tearing at the cloth but my teeth were still clamped around it, the dirty, blood-stained cloth hanging from my mouth in what must have been a ridiculous display of fear. I had forgotten about everything except the very deadly predator in front of me.

In the nearing twilight, the monster was bewitching, so utterly and inhumanly beautiful. I tried to recall if the drawings had hinted at his otherworldly looks and drew a blank. Yet here he was - the last of his kind if my genocide had succeeded - a degenerated, inferior clone of Hashirama Senju and yet so captivating. I blamed my loss of composure on the bleeding, pain and fatigue, as I was openly gawking at the cannibal's perfectly symmetrical features - the smooth, pitch black skin of one half and the mirroring alabaster white - the thin, straight nose, the generous mouth currently drawn in a frown and sharp, calculating - and, dare I say it, slightly curious - golden eyes trained on mine.

I should have remembered that, while I was on the ground, no place was safe from the clones, especially not as close as I was to the Mountains' Graveyard, where even fifteen years ago Madara had littered the underground with his spies.

My mind was slowly adjusting to the idea of dying and I was aware that this knowledge, on top of everything else that had happened today, would soon send me past my breaking point. Already I was wavering between terror, self-pity and anger and could only barely bite back tears of frustration - for having missed my only chance of escaping - and fear in the face of death.

"Huh, Zetsu then..." I rasped, setting aside the ripped cloth. "Tell me, how close is your nearest clone for you to have found me so soon?"

The only reply I received was him fully withdrawing from the tree. He made no move to come closer but I guessed that it was only a matter of time until I became the creature's next meal. I couldn't hold back my tears. There was so much I still wanted to do, so much I wanted to change. ' _At least_ ' I mused ' _at least... perhaps... he might give me some answers._ '

"Kuro-Zetsu, I have some questions, if you'd answer them." I stated, as firmly as I could. It must have been pretty pathetic, considering I was still wiping back tears.

His narrowed eyes and the minute changes in his facial expression suggested annoyance while his posture, almost his whole demeanor, screamed curiosity and confusion. He could probably smell the smoke on me, perhaps even some lingering scent from the caves and it was likely that I had been discovered as the perpetrator of the bloodshed.

Still, I tried to see myself from his perspective, where I was perhaps less an unknown enemy and more an injured civilian child, alone, in the wilderness, making demands of a bi-colored stranger whose name shouldn't have been known to me. It was a sad, sorry truth that I couldn't decide which perspective would see me eaten sooner.

His black side made no move to reply but a light, pleasant, slightly childish voice answered in his stead - white Zetsu.

"Oh, what would you like to know, little one?"

I tried to laugh, but it came out shaky and strained.

"I have questions to ask you too, Shiro-Zetsu. But I would like to sate the most burning part of my curiosity in case I.. get..." I swallowed twice and gripped my neck, physically trying to keep the nausea down long enough to speak "...before I... get eaten. As such, I would... like to converse with Uchiha Madara's will."

"Uchiha Madara's will? **What an interesting thing to say."** Kuro-Zetsu's interjected, interrupting his white half with a rough, throaty voice whose cruel undertones made me recoil. **"That's a pretty tall order, isn't it, brat?"**

I remember clenching my fist to stop from recoiling when he started approaching me with slow, predatory steps.

"You see yourself as an extension of Uchiha Madara's will, don't you?" I asked in an effort to distract myself from the fear as much as distracting him from whatever pain he was about to inflict. "Unlike your white half, who likes working with and for Obito, you are disdainful of his efforts, suspicious of his motives and would betray him, kill him at the first command from your master, wouldn't you?"

"No! We would never do that. Tobi is... **Quiet, she asked me. Is that what you think or what you know, brat? You pose your questions with the absolute confidence of a statement."**

"You don't deny it, either." I countered, absurdly pleased to have been proven right but also irrationally angry at facing an acknowledged betrayer. Shimura Danzo, Orochimaru, Yakushi Kabuto and now Kuro-Zetsu... I saw them as the scum of the earth, forsaking either their morals, their sworn vows or both - their allegiance either fickle or twisted beyond belief. ' _And for what?_ '

**"The boy can take care of himself."**

"Don't mistake my questions for sympathy! That man, Uchiha Obito, I hate him! That fiend killed my brother. But you, you're worse than that. A betrayer is no better than a murderer." I hatefully spat. "And why? Why trade, so casually, a partnership for thankless servitude?! Do you have Uchiha Madara's memories and his desires as well, or simply his orders?" I questioned, gesturing at Zetsu's black half as I spoke.

**"So blunt and disrespectful. Do you want to die, brat?** You don't need to threaten her; though we are hungry. **She was impertinent.** Too... curious, perhaps."

His threats and insults slid by, almost unnoticed as I continued my heated tirade. "Are you at least an autonomous being like Shiro-Zetsu, infused with a mind and personality of your own or are you simply... a pre-programmed tool?" I was remotely aware of my voice rising but somehow, the occasion of finally coming face to face with the real Zetsu - the  _beautiful, frightening, cruel_  equivalent of the bland historical character from my memories - as I lay injured, exposed for a murderer and unable to flee had broken something. Our memories jumbled together and I was at once certain that some things had happened and that they had not.

"Pathetic... You wouldn't even deny that after more than a decade and a half of working with the Uchiha, you'd betray him on a whim! A whim... and not even one of your own!"

The liberating feeling of being close to death allowed me to speak as I wanted to, without checking my words to ensure I wouldn't say something that was not in accordance with this world, with this time period or with the knowledge I  _was supposed_  to have. It had made me passionate in my speech, frenzied in demanding answers.

"Do you know that Madara saw you as failed copies, deteriorating samples, decayed, degenerated genetic material?! What  _are_  you to such a man? What-"

**"A tool, as you said yourself."** he interrupted sharply, leaning down at my level **"But, since you know so much about _us_ , the better question is: what are  _you_?"**


	11. In the Shadow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Timeline - one last time:**  
>  **3 years B.S.D.** \- Tsubaki (peasant - age 5) moves to Tanigakure no Sato to live with her older brother Isamu and write bibliographies of certain shinobi. These are written in the shape of children's stories and fairytales.  
>  **2 years B.S.D.** \- Obito stumbles upon two of the four published children's stories. He asks Zetsu to investigate. After the investigation, Obito moves to gather information from the one lead Zetsu was able to provide. Isamu, Tsubaki's older brother, is kidnapped by ROOT and then killed. As the kidnapping occurs after her conversation with the masked Uchiha, Tsubaki blames Obito and herself for Isamu's disappearance and decides to use the knowledge from her alternate selves to devise weapons for the future Shinobi Alliance to use against the Uchiha.  
>  **1.5 - 1 year B.S.D.** \- Tsubaki accepts the offer made by smuggler Houjou Souta to become his subordinate and apprentice - and later work as a covert agent - as it provides her with the opportunity to become a citizen of Tsuchi no Kuni and adapt their mining knowledge of explosives and blasting devices to her needs. After the distressing experience of witnessing a bloody battle between Houjou's retainers and a group of bandits, she revises the decision of making weapons specifically for the Shinobi Alliance and instead resolves to sneak into the Akatsuki hideout in the Sangaku no Hakaba, the Mountains' Graveyard, and blow up the white Zetsu army held there in stasis.  
>  ** _latest:_** While working for Houjou Souta in Ashoro, Tsubaki develops a brand of explosives which she hopes is powerful enough to take out the Zetsu army. With the help of powerful transformation seals commissioned from Houjou Souta's seal expert associate she manages to plant and detonate the explosives in the underground holding facility before suffering heavy injuries. While she is tending to said injuries in the woods where her transformation was disrupted, Zetsu emerges from a tree. Faced with impending death, Tsubaki breaks down.  
> 

**Warnings:**  violence

* * *

**Chapter 11** : In the Shadow

( _excerpts from Chapter 2 of_  'The Prince with Eyes Like the Sun'; manuscript delivered to Tanigakure no Sato from Ashoro, sender unknown)

"The attack was unexpected.

One minute the caravan was plodding along the dusty road and, not a moment later, flaming arrows were raining down onto the dry canvas covers, remodeling the quiet forest path into a blazing inferno. From drowsing atop his steed, Shin(1) jerked to alertness. To his left a cart exploded, the burning splinters lodging into his horse's flank. The animal gave a loud, keening bray and fell onto its knees; only his quick reflexes saved the youth from being impaled by a flying spear and he jumped from his seat, clumsily unsheathing his daggers.

Amidst the chaos, Shin rushed towards the back of the convoy while dodging the scattering servants, his wide eyes frantically searching for his family. The rogues had made no attempt at negotiation and his heart clenched at the sudden, petrifying thought that the purpose of this brutal encounter may not be robbery but rather assassination. A bandit managed to clip him above the brow before the quick, instinctive thrust from Shin's dagger slipped past the man's guard and carved a deep cut across his neck.

Without pausing to look at his opponent Shin shoved the flailing man to the side and ducked under the nearest wagon to crawl to the other side. The carts and wagons had been strapped so closely together that slipping between them was impossible. Sliding on his belly, he made his way on hands and knees, his eyes desperately scanning the crowd.

'Otou-sama!' The terrified scream was ripped from his throat as he watched a group of bandits converging on his father's carriage. The guards had already engaged the enemy but two daring assassins had charged through the defense, focusing on the Kubo elder.

The taller of the two, a monster of a man wielding a massive nōdachi was attacking the four bodyguards with single-minded resolve. His fierce, relentless barrage of arching slashes and deep thrusts was keeping all four on the defensive. As Shin watched, their attention wavered from the second man for a couple of seconds. This small reprieve was all the assassin needed. He slipped past the warriors and with one vicious strike stabbed Kubo Fusazane through the heart.

Shin's agonized cry died in his throat as the damaged wagon collapsed on top of him and he knew no more."

* * *

"He awoke under the rubble to the stench of boiling blood and burning corpses. Slowly, painfully, Shin dragged himself from under the charred remains of the cart. Whoever had survived the massacre had already fled; all that was left of the extravagant caravan were embers to fuel the fire ravaging his retainers' remains. In the face of such horror, the boy's mind shut down.

Mechanically, he made his way to an impaled body and wrenched the spear free. Using it as a walking stick, Shin haltingly made his way along the road, walking away from the bloodbath. He walked for two days straight until the path crossed the river bordering his family's lands. There, on the rocky river backs, he fell to his knees and cried.

When dusk came, over the water, the sun bled red."

* * *

 

-0-0-0-0-0-

* * *

 

(previously, in the forests surrounding the Mountains' Graveyard)

"Pathetic... You wouldn't even deny that after more than a decade and a half of working with the Uchiha, you'd betray him on a whim! And not even one of your own!"

The liberating feeling of being close to death allowed me to speak as I wanted to, without checking my words to ensure I wouldn't say something that was not in accordance with this world, with this time period or with the knowledge I  _was supposed_  to have. It had made me passionate in my speech, frenzied in demanding answers.

"Do you know that Madara saw you as failed copies, deteriorating samples, decayed, degenerated genetic material?! What  _are_  you to such a man? What-"

 **"A tool, as you said yourself."** he interrupted sharply, leaning down at my level **"But, since you know so much about** ** _us_** **, the better question is: what are** ** _you_** **?"**

* * *

"What  _I_  am? I'm a g-god!" I remember crying out, the shaky scream trailing into a hacking cough.

"I've seen the Rikudou Sennin speak with the infant Bijuu, I've watched Senju Hashirama fight Uchiha Madara at the Valley of the End and I've seen the fall of the heavens(2)." I waved my arm melodramatically, the sweeping motion meant to suggest that my knowledge was all encompassing.

Unlike most other Akatsuki members who could have - perhaps - been enticed with the promise of future knowledge, I doubted Zetsu would let me live, especially when I had just killed his siblings and had information which put him at odds with  _all_  the other members of their criminal organization, including the Uchiha.

Everything had gone to hell in a hand-basket and I remember thinking that I would be damned if I got eaten without at least trying to make Zetsu sweat.

"I'm an oracle, a seer. I've seen you cower before the avatar of Namikaze Minato, leeching off Obito's dying body. Don't you want to know about your de-death?" I tried baiting him, but I was tired - and terrified - and my voice quivered pathetically.

 **"An idle boast. I will show you yours before you show me mine."**  Kuro-Zetsu growled from his kneeling position.

The theatrical delivery and the unsettling nature of the revelations seemed to have only sharpened his belief that I was either insane or more of a threat than an asset. He was unmoved, unafraid and I could see it in his eyes when he decided that we were finished talking.

His black arm slowly lifted towards my face but, before it could complete its path, a high-pitched scream was heard, coming from a tree not far behind me and then a crash, as something - or rather someone - gracelessly plunked down next to me.

"Oh, Zetsu-senpai! Tobi had a really, really hard time catching up to you." came the masked man's falsely cheerful voice. It was clear that he had heard at least part of our conversation and was opposed to Zetsu disposing of me so abruptly. ' _The bastard is right to be paranoid. _I **had**  just accused Zetsu of betraying him and possessing his body.__' I silently mused, while the Uchiha threw an arm around my shoulders, jarring my arm and making my vision darken from the sudden stab of pain.

"But Tobi can forgive you for leaving so abruptly. The flames were so big and scary! It's much nicer here, with the tall, leafy trees and, oh! Zetsu-senpai! You've found a hurt, little-"

You could tell the precise instant when Obito became aware of the identity of the dirty child facing his teammate. His gestures stilled and his tall frame grew taut. The childish demeanor bled off like a clown's cheap makeup in the rain. His grip tightened painfully, fingers digging into my arm so hard that I couldn't muffle a cry.

"-You." he said in a husky baritone that betrayed nothing of the anger I could feel from his hurtful, unyielding grip.

"Me." I sneered weakly.

"Well, this certainly explains a few things." came the Uchiha's whisper "And raises many more questions."

"Tobi..." Shiro-Zetsu whispered dejectedly.

"I'm afraid I'm going to borrow the girl for a little while." Obito said, shaking me lightly "She's made such amazing claims and interesting accusations."

"Tobi, we..." Shiro-Zetsu interjected again. While his darker half held his silence, the white side's previously light voice was now quiet and brittle, his manner filled with consternation.

"I will be back shortly." he added, showing no sign of having heard his companion's interruption. "...Don't be a stranger... Zetsu."

I heard his parting words as in a dream, through an immense pressure squeezing me from all sides. The pain in my arm had grown to unbearable levels and I passed out.

-0-0-0-0-0-

I woke in a limitless place, the nature of which my brain immediately rejected, vainly trying to translate the surrounding black void into an understandable, familiar thing. I had been lying on a hard, cool platform and while my head was pounding, I felt surprisingly little pain from either of my injuries. With agonizing slowness, I raised myself to a sitting position and noticed that all my injuries had been tended to, the broken arm carefully splintered, the leg wounds wrapped tightly in clean bandages. The attention that had been paid to my well being momentarily threw me for a loop; it was so absurd, so at odds with what I expected of the masked criminal who had taken Isamu away from me.

Once I gathered my bearings I realized that the very man was seated behind me, lounging on a throne-like boulder, waiting in silence. Even as I turned to look at him, the Uchiha still refused to speak, the look expanding into a lengthy stare. Finally, I let my eyes drop from his mask and, with a sigh, decided to address him.

"Well, Uchiha," I whispered in a hoarse voice, perhaps rudely, rubbing my eyes with the back of my hand "from our previous meeting I had assumed that, unlike your partner, you'd be all for interrogation."

He stayed quiet long enough for the silence to become uncomfortable and I felt myself starting to fidget. At last, his answer came in a subtly amused tone that was plainly meant to provoke me.

"You're a great deal more hostile than the last time we met. What happened? Did the charade grow tiresome?"

"What happened?!' I asked " _You_  happened, you.. you madman! Murderer! I hate you! I hate you!" I hissed, leaning backwards and closing my eyes in an effort to lessen the throbbing pain inside my head.

"Do you? ...You've halved my forces, revealed sensitive information about me and mine, tried to alienate my allies and make a fool of me." I heard him listing my offenses in a low, slightly menacing monotone.

I stayed silent. While it was one of the few things which still kept me going, I knew he wouldn't appreciate the suggestion that I had  _succeeded_  in the endeavor.

"I think we can safely say that I hold a great _, great deal_ of dislike for you as well." he finished quietly, betraying none of the hostility he claimed to feel.

Then again, earlier in the day he'd spoken on an equally amiable tone while gripping my shoulder hard enough to break.

"You sh-shouldn't have touched my b-brother." I said hoarsely "When I first started writing the books, I'd hoped that you and the rest of the Akatsuki would veer off your self-destructive paths." I swallowed a rueful laugh and, squinting, I tried to focus on the hole in his mask "Now, I'm just sorry you weren't in the base when it blew up."

"Your brother?" he had the gall to appear dismayed. "That nonsense you spouted the last time we met? You didn't honestly expect me to believe that lazy fool had anything to do with the books."

"He... didn't..." I falteringly agreed. "He d-didn't! But then, if you were already aware of the misdirection... why?! Why did you.."

"Again with that? I didn't kill your worthless brother and, to the best of my knowledge, neither did Zetsu. Though seeing how much trouble you've caused me, I wish I'd ordered your whole wretched line eliminated. I still might."

"A pointlessly cruel bluff... why try so hard to deny your involvement?" I scoffed. The madman's continued denials were baffling. Perhaps he believed that I would magically agree to help him in his deluded quest, offer some vital tidbit, if he convinced me of his - relative - innocence.

"He went missing right after our talk. You can't think me so thick so as not to put two and two together. What's your angle? Do you think it will get you more infor-"

"Have you considered, silly girl" Obito said spitefully "that just as you've caught my attention, you might have made other adversaries with your... your little _games_?"

I barked a short, hollow laugh and let myself fall backwards until I was lying on my back, with my uninjured arm slung over my eyes.

"Oh, this is rich! Is this the moment where you start pointing fingers? Maybe at Sasori - he was one of my first characters after all, and as a spymaster, he could've reasonably found out about my family. He's certainly heartless enough to interrogate a potential suspect without concern for their life."

I tried to put myself in the Uchiha's shoes and it didn't take me long to come up with yet another suggestion.

"No, your style would be different... You'd have little to gain from shifting the blame onto one of your pawns. But I know what you _would_ do. You've done it before - or will do it again -, blame Danzo. Since I _have_ spilled some of his dirty little secrets, this would tie in nicely, wouldn't it, eh?"

He didn't rise to my bait, if anything, he latched onto another part of my speech entirely. After a short silence, he carefully inquired, "And what precisely have I, or will I, blame Shimura Danzo for?"

"I suppose it won't mean much if I tell you that I... I believe that, in the event of Itachi's death, you plan on informing his brother about the truth behind the Uchiha massacre, including the names of those who ordered the clan's elimination... neglecting of course to mention your own involvement in the bloody affair."

"And we come full circle, to your uncanny ability of mentioning things you should have no knowledge of." He paused, as though to wait for some confession, then asked. "You've mentioned to Zetsu that you believe yourself to be a seer. How often do you have these..."

 

"...Mystical visions? Flashes of insight? Often enough." I answered in a wry tone ' _After all, the knowledge is already in my head._ ' I silently added. "But I doubt you're interested in the gruesome death of a random farmer from Cha no Kuni ten years ago."

I wasn't even sure why I was playing this game. The man was still an enemy, though his continued denials had been noted and, frustratingly, had the ring of truth.

I balked at the idea but - in light of his repeated protestations - I considered that I could perhaps give him one chance to prove his innocence (in this matter). It was so tempting, so irresistible, the idea that it mightn't have been my fault (not wholly), that while I'd failed in my self-imposed mission, I could still bribe someone into bringing me my brother's killer.

Maybe then the guilt would ease a bit, would stop  _choking me_  whenever I thought about my family.

With my eyes closed I sat, mulling over every scrap of information I knew about Uchiha Obito, turning over the memory of our previous encounter, every hint that the madman could be telling the truth, that he could become a tentative ally. Could I trust him not to simply find a convenient scapegoat while demanding information to further the Akatsuki's goals? Perhaps if I told him the truth about Madara, if I told him the truth surrounding the death of his beloved teammate... Perhaps if...

* * *

I must have laid there for hours, considering and reconsidering. I wasn't smart or cunning enough to predict the madman's actions; and I wasn't so naive - or virtuous - as to believe in this man's inherent goodness. For all I knew, once made aware of the depth of Madara's manipulations, he could fly into a rage and kill everything in sight. But hope, hope is difficult to stamp out. Even if it's only the hope of doing something monstrous...

"Bring me hard, solid proof that neither you nor any of your associates were involved in my brother's disappearance. Better still, bring me indisputable proof of who was or,  _best of all_ , bring me their corpses back with the proof." I rasped "In exchange, I'll tell you all about your supposed perfect world, Madara's plans to double-cross you... and the crimes  _he's already committed_  against you."

-0-0-0-0-0-

( _excerpt from Chapter 6 of_  'The Prince with Eyes Like the Sun')

He had passed into Yomi-no-Kuni like a wraith. The world's color had slowly bled away until he was the only beacon of life in a realm of dark shades and frightening, senseless shapes that groaned and shifted at the edge of his vision. He didn't question when a hunched figure dressed in long, flowing robes appeared by his side and, gently holding onto his elbow, led him past the forest of absurd structures and into an eerie temple.

"Izanami(3)-sama is not here to hear your request, child." his companion's raspy voice floated into Shin's mind, a treacherous whisper of thought that had escaped his hearing.

"But, in her stead, I shall welcome you to her halls." Inside the temple, under the light of a thousand floating candles, the dead partook of a grand feast.

There were hundreds, thousands of seated figures, eating the strange fare and talking. The Shinigami stopped by many tables to converse with these specters. In reply to his queries the dead nodded their heads, gestured and rose from their seats to stand by the death god, darting around each-other and vying for his attention like butterflies flittering around an irresistible flower.

The deeper they walked into the temple, the more unsettled the young boy became. A host of spirits had joined in their slow walk, turning the stroll into a bizarre procession of eager, chattering figures whose voices the boy couldn't hear. At the death god's side, Shin strained to talk but, among the dead, he too seemed voiceless.

Eyes wide with terror, he tugged on the other's robes and the dark cloth slipped through his fingers like midnight smoke. Maddened, he scattered the tableware, toppled the chairs and tried to set them alight. In the blink of an eye, at some sign from the death god, his wreck was undone.

Falling to his knees, he screamed, threatened and pleaded but all to no avail.

**THE END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Behind the name: Shin - written with the kanji for true (真);  
> (2) Tsubaki is referring to Madara's Tengai Shinsei.  
> (3) In Japanese mythology, Yomi-no-Kuni (the realm of the dead) is the current home of the goddess Izanami. Yomi is not necessarily considered a separate realm from Earth but once one has eaten food from the Land of the Dead one may not return to the realm of the living.
> 
>   **Thank you all for reading!**
> 
>  ( **Final spoiler** regarding the protagonists of Tsubaki's stories: _The Demon Who Became a Boy and The Boy Who Became a Demon_ \- Gaara and Sasori;  
>  _The Miko's Last Dance_ \- Hidan;  
>  _The Oni of a Thousand Eyes_ \- Shimura Danzo and Itachi;  
>  _The Wizard Who Put a Kingdom to Sleep_ \- Itachi and Sasuke _(and EvilShapeshifter/MasterManipulator!Obito)_ ;  
>  _The Three Brothers of Vice_ \- Konan, Nagato and Yahiko _(and EvilShapeshifter/MasterManipulator!Obito)_ ;  
>  _The Prince with Eyes Like the Sun_ \- Young!Obito and Madara)


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